5 Dogecoin Predictions for 2022

Has Dogecoin lost its bite? Or can it regain its strength?

Dogecoin's (DOGE) whopping 3,500% annual increase wasn't enough to make it one of the top-performing cryptos of 2021, but the popular meme coin did capture the most attention. It was the most searched cryptocurrency in 2021, according to Google trends.

The pet coin's price hit an all-time high on May 8, after which it lost value and has struggled to gain momentum ever since. Can Dogecoin remain crypto's favorite doggie in 2022? Here are five Dogecoin predictions for the year ahead.

1. Dogecoin will get a facelift

The Dogecoin Foundation published a "trailmap" at the end of December. A trailmap is like a roadmap but less rigid, in keeping with Dogecoin's community-driven, consensus-based approach. Here are some important elements in the new plan:

• Redesign of the Dogecoin.com website. This will include a complete list of common Dogecoin FAQs, dubbed a "Dogepedia."
• Creation of a new Dogecoin technical standard. This will make it easier for new developers to work with Doge. In addition, a new library of building blocks will help those who want to build Dogecoin products.
• The GigaWallet. The foundation wants retailers and exchanges to be able to integrate Dogecoin without any hassle. To that end, the team is working on a GigaWallet that can be set up in seconds.

The thrust of it all is that the more useful the coin is, the more people will use it. And the more people use it, the more likely Dogecoin is to become a universal currency.

2. Elon Musk will continue his DOGE tweets

The self-proclaimed Dogefather has consistently pumped Dogecoin on social media. The billionaire is unlikely to stop tweeting about his pet coin in the year to come. He thinks Dogecoin is the people's crypto and that it's easier to spend Dogecoin than Bitcoin (BTC).

Musk's tweets have been a major driver behind Dogecoin's success. Musk even mentioned Dogecoin on his Saturday Night Live appearance -- a large part of the reason for the coin's May high.

3. More merchants will accept DOGE

According to Cryptwerk, about 2,000 merchants currently accept Dogecoin while almost 7,700 take Bitcoin. That number is increasing. Musk's Tesla announced in December that it will accept DOGE for merch payments. AMC Theatres, which began taking payments in a handful of cryptos at the end of 2021, says it will open the doors to Dogecoin and Shiba Inu (SHIB) payments around March 2022.

Last summer, another billionaire crypto enthusiast, Mark Cuban, tweeted that Dogecoin was the people's way to pay. He said people spend thousands of dollars in DOGE in the Dallas Mavericks store. Unlike Bitcoin, which people tend to hold in the hope it will appreciate in value, Cuban says people are more comfortable spending their DOGE. Dogecoin is also available from most top cryptocurrency exchanges.

4. Other pet coins will nip at Dogecoin's heels

The whole phenomenon of meme coins is pretty new. This trend of pop culture colliding with financial investments only really took off in 2021. And while Dogecoin's success showed us they can't be ignored, it is hard to know what might happen next.

However, the proliferation of pet coins means Dogecoin can expect more competition in the future. Especially because meme coins tend to make sudden price jumps, often for unpredictable reasons, propelling them up the crypto charts. We saw this late last year when Shiba Inu briefly overtook Dogecoin.

Whether Dogecoin can stand its ground against the impersonators depends a lot on whether the coin can regain any momentum. It does have a loyal community of followers. But it is difficult for it to retain its anti-establishment reputation while also sitting in the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap. You just can't continue to be the underdog once you're successful.

5. Dogecoin will continue its trademark battle

Another issue Dogecoin needs to address is its trademark registration. Since Dogecoin was originally created as a joke that wasn't supposed to serve any purpose, the founders did not register its trademark. Several of the Dogecoin copycats now want to own that brand. One in particular, Moon Rabbit, has registered a company called the Dogecoin Foundation and bought the domain doge.org.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in 2022. It's one thing to create a strategic direction for DOGE on the back of its popularity, it will be quite another to claim legal ownership of a brand years after its launch.

Is there life in the old dog yet?

Dogecoin continues to be among the top cryptos, but it may not be able to maintain its position. If you'd bought $1,000 of DOGE at the start of 2021, you'd have about $34,000 today. That's incredible. But if you'd bought $1,000 at the all-time high in May, you'd only have $216 today -- a loss of almost 80%.

The reformation of the Dogecoin Foundation and clear 2022 goals should be good signs. And perhaps the new website and technical work to ensure Dogecoin can be accepted by more retailers will give DOGE a much-needed boost.

What's troubling is that so far, these positive strategic moves haven't had much impact on Dogecoin's price -- the main drivers continue to be its community and tweets from Elon Musk. Unless Musk appears on another popular TV show and talks about Dogecoin, it is hard to see how it can regain its highs.

All the same, if there's one thing we learned last year, it's that Dogecoin often succeeds against the odds. Personally, I won't buy DOGE because I think there are many more exciting cryptocurrency projects out there. But I'm not going to write it off either.