Elon Musk-inspired DOGE meme coin is skyrocketing, surpassing Dogecoin gains

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) – an Ethereum meme coin inspired by Elon Musk’s planned US government office of the same name – has doubled in price, surpassing the billionaire’s beloved Dogecoin (DOGE) amid its own peak.

According to CoinGecko, the DOGE token is up around 75% in the last 24 hours to $0.163. In comparison, the price of Dogecoin is almost unchanged over the same period and is currently over $0.19, despite Dogecoin having increased by 75% in the last 30 days.

Since its launch in August, DOGE’s price has risen more than 1,400%, data from CoinGecko shows. At the time of writing, the token has a market cap of $161 million.

Although DOGE has performed significantly better than Dogecoin in the last day, both tokens have risen several times over the past few months. The token’s rallies since August have largely been driven by a flurry of public comments and appearances from Elon Musk related to DOGE.

The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX has long been associated with Dogecoin, declaring himself a big fan of the coin and often driving up the price of the token with his tweets and appearances. Many other meme coins have now been inspired by Musk, his life and his companies, with the DOGE token being just one of the more recent examples.

Musk and DOGE

In August, Elon Musk joked online that he would lead a US government office called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under Trump’s incoming second administration.

His posts on Twitter (also known as X) inspired the creation of the DOGE meme coin later that month. Observant crypto traders noticed that the bureau’s DOGE acronym matched Dogecoin’s ticker, causing the OG meme coin’s price to skyrocket.

In September, Trump retweeted one of Musk’s posts about the fictional agency along with an image of the Tesla founder as a DOGE leader, which preceded a spike in the price of both tokens.

Beyond this flurry of online exchanges, Musk has also made several personal appearances in support of Trump, which have provided continued market momentum for both tokens.

Last month, Musk spoke about his DOGE agency plans at a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden in New York. Shortly after appearing at the event, the DOGE meme coin rose to a new all-time high and has only continued to rise since then. Meanwhile, the price of Dogecoin increased by 12% after the rally and peaked at around $0.16 at the time.

Musk also appeared alongside President-elect Donald Trump on Election Day, driving prices of both tokens higher as the former US leader secured a second term.

Data from CoinGecko shows that DOGE is up about 250% since Election Day, while Dogecoin is up about 17% since Tuesday.

Edited by Andrew Hayward