Opinion: The Doge Days Are Over. You Invested in Dogecoin, Now What?

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board of Benzinga.

Everybody familiar with traditional investing knows that penny stocks are rife with fraud and scams.

Still, with the recent attention on cryptocurrencies because of the tremendous growth of Bitcoin and the social-media interest in Dogecoin, it is worth a quick lesson on how we can define the value of cryptocurrencies. 

Doge and Bitcoin are easy ways to come into cryptoland but don't expect these assets to not move under your feet like a massive earthquake as the entire industry is still in its early days. 

I am a Founder and CEO of a crypto company that helps Crypto users HODL their assets, earn interest and take out loans.

Still, even as much as we like the attention and growth that these moments bring, we also need to be careful to educate new users on assets' risks with little to no value or utility.

See also: How to Buy Dogecoin (DOGE)

Instead, if you are reading this because Dogecoin got you interested in digital assets' investment potential, let me help you understand how to determine value through use cases, teams, and more.

Trust me. There are coins in this industry that are just a meme-worthy as Doge, without the same risk.

Why is Dogecoin so popular?

The simplest answer is it has been around since 2014 and went MOON thanks to Elon Musk.

The Tesla CEO has taken a liking of the coin for no particular reason.

It all began on January 28, when he tweeted a cover of "Dogue" magazine. Ever since he has been consistently provoking investors of all types to rush into the coin, this coincided with the events of the Reddit group Wall Street Bets' monumental Gamestop (GME) surge.

People were more tuned in than ever before to running with an investment trend straight from the internet.

Dogecoin is no stranger to being the benefactor of a trend, as it had just been the subject of a TikTok challenge in July 2020.

Why shouldn't we invest?

I cannot give anyone investment advice, but what I can say is that there are over 15,000 projects in crypto, so one should do some homework before selecting what's worth big followings time is, money, and effort to invest into that having a coin like Doge be the third most talked about asset in our industry feels too similar to the problems we had with illegitimate projects in 2017.

Jackson Palmer and Billy Markus created Dogecoin at the end of 2013 as a fork (copy) of Litecoin (itself a copy of Bitcoin) and an insider joke.

As an industry, there is no need to hype up a meme for attention anymore-- we have real value that nobody can rival. 

Don't worry; there are memes worth investing in!

I get that one of the appeals of crypto is the punk-rock attitude mixed with the culture of trolling and memes.

I've been at the receiving end of some great ones myself. If the appeal of holding onto a currency that not only makes you money but fits your sense of humor is something you prioritize, I've split these groups up into Memes, Low Cost, and Fun projects. 

Meme-worthiness: I assure you that the Decentralized Finance ("DeFi") segment of crypto is in no short supply of quality projects that have solid fundamentals, great teams, and real use cases behind them and can offer you the same level of meme value as Doge. Projects like UniSwap, Compound, and AAVE all offer value that extends beyond great branding. 

Low-cost coins: Dogecoin pumping from fractions to a whole dollar is an appealing concept, and, for many, it feels a lot more possible to invest into with some real weight compared to a Bitcoin that is currently above $50,000.

However, the idea of a crypto project growing 100x is not exclusive to Doge (which has over 128 billion coins in circulation, that is 16 Dogecoin for every human on the planet), nor is it that rare.

Cardano, Algorand, Polkadot, Binance Coin, and CEL tokens have all seen huge profits for investors in just the last year.

New projects are developing right now with real potential to pump from nothing to a dollar and then to the moon.

Fun: If your intention is to have fun and explore the exciting sub-plots in the larger world of crypto, then there are so many projects that can give you that experience while also giving you the value add of usefulness and resource.

Projects like my company that offer high yield on your cryptocurrencies paid out weekly, NFTs like NBA Top Shot that let you own the great moments in basketball, and apps like MyEtherWallet you access hundreds of fun projects right from your mobile phone.

Crypto has come a long way since the early days of useless coins that can be pumped and dumped on unsuspecting newcomers.

The doge days come and go, and there are real horses (nay, unicorns) running through the crypto landscape of 2021.

Today, it is a place of exciting, vibrant projects that offer new financial independence and ownership to the investors themselves.

It is a place that believes in accountability, anonymity, and the occasional asinine project name.

But ultimately, if you have found yourself interested in cryptocurrency because of Dogecoin, I urge you to keep going because beyond the hype, there is a real revolution happening, and we'd love for you to be a part of it all.

By Alex Mashinsky, CEO and Founder of Celsius Network