Dogecoin's 2025 Review: DOGE Moves Toward Politicization and Commercialization

Title: The Year in Dogecoin 2025: DOGE Goes Political and Commercial

Author: Ryan S. Gladwin

Source:

Translation: Daisy, Mars Finance

Dogecoin finds itself at the center of a controversial political storm while also being embraced by traditional institutions.

In 2025, Dogecoin hovers between political controversy and corporate interest, with its price experiencing significant declines.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency linked this meme coin to U.S. politics, briefly boosting its price, but legal challenges and policy missteps quickly pushed this initiative out of the spotlight.

Public companies, fund managers, and ETF issuers have embraced DOGE, but strong corporate momentum has failed to push it to new all-time highs, leading the community to focus on practical growth in 2026 rather than speculation.

It started as a joke, but this year, Dogecoin was adopted by institutions, heavily bought by publicly traded companies, and its name was used in a controversial U.S. government project led by billionaire Elon Musk.

Nevertheless, this original meme coin did not reach new all-time highs, disappointing its loyal fan base. As of December 15, DOGE has erased all gains made in 2025, falling about 65% over 12 months.

Thus, Dogecoin had an awkward year; it gradually moved away from its grassroots spirit but did not deliver the financial returns people initially expected. However, the creators of Dogecoin believe the project is poised for a breakout in 2026.

Below is a review of Dogecoin in 2025.

At the end of 2024, the Trump administration positioned Musk as the public face of the newly established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), although his formal authority within the agency soon became a point of controversy.

The department’s goal was to cut government spending as much as possible. This crazy situation continued into 2025, and somehow Dogecoin became the center of it all.

Minutes after President Trump’s inauguration, the Musk-led department was sued by the public interest law firm “National Security Counselors.” The 30-page lawsuit accused DOGE of illegally operating as a federal advisory committee, violating the Federal Advisory Committee Act in areas such as recruitment, information disclosure, and other matters.

The next day, the Dogecoin logo appeared on the Department of Government Efficiency’s website. As a result, the meme coin rose 14%, with its market cap reaching $58 billion. The logo was later removed, and the token’s price declined, while the website became a page tracking all government spending cuts allegedly driven by DOGE.

According to Bloomberg, Musk even considered using a public blockchain for the agency but ruled out the possibility of directly using Dogecoin. This blockchain-based implementation ultimately did not materialize.

After the department officially launched, controversy did not cease. DOGE mistakenly laid off about 2,000 healthcare workers, pushed for cuts to foreign aid—criticized as harmful to global health—and was found to have exaggerated its claimed savings.

Alex Hoffman, head of the DogeOS application layer ecosystem, told Decrypt that when he said he was working on DOGE-related projects, his family thought he had joined Musk’s government agency.

In reality, he was helping build products for Dogecoin. This is just one example illustrating how, under Musk’s influence, Dogecoin became so politicized this year that the public associated the two.

“Hoffman explained: ‘Do you know what the Dogecoin community thinks DOGE stands for? Do Only Good Every Day. As a community, we have great power to do just that—like DOGE: do only good every day. Of course, Elon co-opted it. That’s okay, you know. But the community is very focused on doing positive things.’”

The Department of Government Efficiency eventually faded from public view, and Musk was pushed out of the U.S. government. This happened before Musk criticized his former best friend—President Trump—for appearing in Epstein documents.

Dogecoin Goes Corporate

This year, digital asset vaults dominated the narrative, while a few altcoins and meme coin ETFs frequently made headlines. Dogecoin was involved in both trends.

In January, REX Shares applied to create a Dogecoin ETF, initially expected to be approved by April, but that did not happen.

Two months later, the Dogecoin Foundation established the House of Doge, aiming to promote adoption through corporate partnerships. It reserved 10 million DOGE for these plans, worth about $1.83 million at the time.

By June, a publicly traded former marijuana company rebranded as Dogecoin Cash and set up a new subsidiary, Dogecoin Treasury Inc., to build a Dogecoin treasury. The company did not specify its plans when contacted by Decrypt, but its telemedicine platform began accepting DOGE as payment a few months later.

In early July, Bitcoin treasury company Thumzup shifted to Dogecoin to diversify its treasury assets and subsequently acquired a Dogecoin mining company. That same month, Bitcoin mining firm Bit Origin bought $10 million worth of DOGE to create a meme coin treasury. Since these acquisitions, Dogecoin’s price has only declined.

In September, a new treasury company, CleanCore Solutions, emerged and hired Elon Musk’s personal lawyer, Alex Spiro, as chairman.

Due to its connections with the Dogecoin Foundation and House of Doge, CleanCore Solutions was touted as the first “official” DOGE treasury. As of December 15, CleanCore held 733.1 million DOGE, worth about $900 million.

That month, the first Dogecoin ETF began trading in the U.S. and “broke” analyst expectations early on. In November, Grayscale’s ETF launched with a slow start, followed shortly by Bitwise’s fund.

“In my view, all of this is beneficial for DOGE on a macro level,” Hoffman said. “What I’ve learned is that the DOGE community craves recognition and utility. Everything happening around these developments reinforces the idea that [Dogecoin] is worth it and is gaining recognition.”

Similarly, in October, House of Doge went public via a reverse merger with university-themed online gaming business Brag House Holdings on Nasdaq.

Subsequently, the Dogecoin Foundation’s corporate division acquired a majority stake in European football club U.S. Triestina Calcio 1918, branding its jerseys and stadium with Dogecoin logos.

Despite what seem to be continuous positive developments, Dogecoin has yet to reach a new all-time high. In fact, it is the only top ten cryptocurrency by market cap that has not hit a new high during the recent crypto bull run. Is all of this futile?

“Dogecoin remains firmly on a growth trajectory centered on utility rather than speculation,” Timothy Stebbing, director of the Dogecoin Foundation, told Decrypt. “In recent years, Dogecoin led the speculative asset camp, but now it’s finding its place as a practical currency. As you might expect, this will set it on a different growth path from those cryptocurrencies chasing the ‘forever rising’ fairy tale.”