Dogecoin's market cap grew six-fold in January 2021 after tweets from Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and has kept on growing since. By February 2021, the market cap of the cryptocurrency based on the famous internet meme had already doubled again. Compared to both the Bitcoin market capitalization as well as the Ethereum market cap, Dogecoin was not as popular.

The price of the cryptocurrency based on the famous internet meme broke its price decline in early November 2022 - as people started buying the coin after FTX's collapse. This rally only lasted for a few days, however, as a Dogecoin was worth roughly 0.17 U.S. dollars on May 4, 2025. This is a different development than in 2021 - when the crypto became very popular in a short amount of time. Between January 28 and January 29, 2021, Dogecoin's value grew by around 216 percent to 0.023535 U.S. dollars after comments from Tesla CEO Elon Musk. The digital coin quickly grew to become the most talked-about cryptocurrency available: not necessarily for its price - the prices of Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP) and several other virtual currencies were much higher than that of DOGE - but for its growth.

Dogecoin / outputs 2018-09 (Blockchair data). Documentaion and terms of use available at https://blockchair.com/dumps Speed limit filter https://gz.blockchair.com/README.html License: CC-BY 4.0

The mining of Dogecoin became increasingly profitable in 2021, reaching the highest revenue figures since early 2018. This follows after a surge of activity in the cryptocurrency due to comments from Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who remarked on Twitter that people should invest in this digital currency. During the mining of cryptocurrencies, a computer is trying to solve complicated logic puzzles to verify transactions in the blockchain. When this process is completed, the miner receives cryptocurrency as a block reward. The underlying dynamic is that machines with more computing power - or hashrate - are likely to solve more puzzles, and therefore mine more cryptocurrencies. Whether a miner can make money with this depends on various costs such as electricity consumption during this process, transaction fees or whether the hardware used is efficient or not.

Memecoin Shiba Inu saw its price grow by more than 300 percent within one and the same month, marking a trading fury reminiscent of Dogecoin in early 2021. Indeed, the SHIB coin ranked as one of the biggest crypto in the world based on 24h trading volume in October 2021 - with trading activity being almost as high as that of Ethereum. Originally starting out as a fun token based on the famous Japanese dog breed, the digital currency grabbed mainstream attention in 2021 probably due to its low barrier of entry: Even after its price spikes, Shiba Inu was one of the cheapest coins available, especially when compared to the price of 99 other cryptocurrencies. Combine this with survey information that most consumers in the U.S. and the UK invest in crypto either for growth or fun, and Shiba Inu is probably seen by many as a relatively simple, "quick win" investment. As of May 19, 2025, the price of one million Shiba Inu is 14.08.

Verified users of the Coinbase trading platform increased over three times between 2018 and 2021 as interest in cryptocurrency grew. Cryptocurrency apps became significantly more popular between December 2020 and January 2021 and the price of Bitcoin grew significantly, and other cryptocurrencies such as Dogecoin attracted more and more general interest.

Big in the West: Coinbase users by country

The Delaware based platform reached its highest ever number of daily active users (DAU) in the United States in early 2021: The number of DAUs for the Coinbase app was significantly higher than many other cryptocurrency wallets available. Coinbase was not just popular in its native country, however. More than six out of 10 respondents in the United Kingdom said they preferred to use Coinbase over other exchanges in 2019, with 2021 DAU figures further strengthening the app's position in the UK. Coinbase was also popular in Germany in 2021, although this country had several domestic alternatives at its disposal.

Cryptocurrency's gender gap

Crypto owners or investors overall tend to be male rather than women. This trend is observed several countries worldwide, and in different regions as well. For instance, Colombia was said to be one of two Latin American countries with the highest percentage of female users, even though Colombian women did not make up a clear majority. In Oceania, crypto ownership among Australia women showed a decline between 2019 and 2020. Note this information stems from consumer surveys, with most of these being released either in late 2020 or early 2021 - right before the Bitcoin and Ethereum prices went up dramatically. Whether these figures have changed come 2021, can therefore not yet be established.

How many cryptocurrencies are there? In short, there were over 9,000 as of 2023, although there were many more digital coins in the early months of 2022. Note, however, that a large portion of cryptocurrencies might not be that significant. There are other estimates of roughly 20,000 cryptocurrencies existing, but most of these are either inactive or discontinued. Due to how open the creation process of a cryptocurrency is, it is relatively easy to make one. Indeed, the top 20 cryptocurrencies make up nearly 90 percent of the total market. Why are there thousands of cryptocurrencies? Any private individual or company that knows how to write a program on a blockchain can technically create a cryptocurrency. That blockchain can be an existing one. Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain are popular blockchain platforms for such ends, including smart contracts within Decentralized Finance (DeFi). The ease of crypto creation allows some individuals to find solutions to real-world payment problems while others hope to make a quick profit. This explains why some crypto lack utility. Meme coins such as Dogecoin - named after a Japanese dog species - are an infamous example, with Dogecoin's creator coming out and stating the coin started as a joke. The many different types of cryptocurrency Meme coins are but one group of cryptocurrencies. Other types include altcoins, utility tokens, governance tokens, and stablecoins. Altcoins are often measured against Bitcoin, as this refers to all crypto that followed after Bitcoin - the first digital currency ever created. Utility tokens and governance tokens are somewhat connected to NFTs and the metaverse. A specific example is the MANA cryptocurrency, which allows real estate purchases in the Decentraland metaverse. Stablecoins refer to the likes of Tether, which are pegged to a real-world asset like the U.S. dollar. Such coins are meant to be less volatile than regular cryptocurrency.

Somewhat resembling developments of Dogecoin in early 2021, the market cap of Shiba Inu (SHIB) more than tripled in only a few weeks. This rapid growth especially occurred since September 2021, with the cryptocurrency breaking the 10 billion U.S. dollar barrier multiple in the following month. Whilst no exact reason was given why the memecoin grew so fast during this time, the digital currency did become available on Coinbase, one of the world's most well-known crypto exchanges, on September 17. This move, and the fact that consumers in the U.S. and the UK overall tend to invest in crypto for fun or as a potential growth investment, might explain the popularity of the dog-themed coin. Indeed, Shiba Inu ranked as the number 13 cryptocurrency in the world based on market cap in late October 2021 - closely behind DeFi-affilated like Uniswap (UNI) and Terra (LUNA).

Download figures for crypto wallets in 2024 were much closer to the all-time high reached in the middle of 2021 than in other years. This after comparing download figures from several apps, including Coinbase, Blockchain.com, Metamask, Trust, and Binance, among others. Whilst the ten most popular cryptocurrency wallets registered roughly 2.2 million downloads in December 2020, one month later it had grown to over 5.6 million. It is around this time the price of Bitcoin grew significantly, and other cryptocurrencies such as Dogecoin attracted more and more general interest.