Doge is pumping, but doge ETFs are flopping
“It’s the people’s coin, built on memes, community energy, and viral moments. The fact that it can pump 21% in a week without a single dollar of ETF inflows shows the community still has pricing power independent of Wall Street.”
Dogecoin, the meme coin that started as a joke and the 10th-largest crypto by market cap, is on a winning streak, up 24% in the past week. In comparison, the two largest coins, bitcoin and ethereum, are up 4% and 6%, respectively, over the same period.
It’s a bleaker story for spot dogecoin ETFs, however: Grayscale’s GDOG, which started trading on the NYSE on November 24, and Bitwise’s BWOW, debuting on the Nasdaq on November 26, registered zero inflows on Tuesday, SoSoValue data shows. Together, the two funds have registered a relatively paltry $3.9 million so far in January.
Meanwhile, Rex-Osprey’s DOJE ETF, with $24 million in assets under management and the first of its kind to hit the market, also had zero inflows on Tuesday, according to Greg King, CEO of Rex Financial.
As for 21Shares’ leveraged 2x Long Dogecoin ETF, launched on November 20, it also registered zero inflows on Tuesday, data from The Block shows.
Rex’s King told Sherwood News that on Tuesday, DOJE traded about 250,000 shares, versus an average volume of 59,000.
“Creations,” meaning buying the underlying security and wrapping them in an ETF, “often don’t tie immediately to increased volume, but increased volume on a 21% up day for DOGE indicates an increase in demand for DOJE,” he said.
Yet demand for dogecoin ETFs has been tepid so far, particularly compared to other altcoin ETFs:
XRP ETFs have recorded $78.8 million in inflows so far this month and have yet to see a single day of outflows. XRP, Ripple’s native token, is up 19% in the past week.
Solana ETFs have seen $35.1 million in inflows in January, while the token is up roughly 9% in the last seven days.
Nic Puckrin, cofounder of Coin Bureau, told Sherwood that while there haven’t been ETF flows into doge over the last few days, that doesn’t mean people aren’t trading doge.
Puckrin attributes the price/inflows discrepancy to the difference in the retail and institutional crowds.
“ETF flows, meanwhile, often reflect more sticky or institutional capital, suggesting the price surge may have been driven more by speculative retail interest,” he said.
Unlike their bitcoin and ethereum counterparts, which have become highly institutionalized thanks to backing from large financial institutions and ETF launches, doge is a different beast.
Alan Orwick, CEO of Dominant Strategies, deemed doge ETFs “a flop” since their inception, due to doge being a community-driven asset with key figures like Elon Musk keeping the narrative alive.
Orwick added that the lack of institutional interest is a feature rather than a bug, as the token was never meant to be a suit-and-tie institutional play.
“It’s the people’s coin, built on memes, community energy, and viral moments. The fact that it can pump 21% in a week without a single dollar of ETF inflows shows the community still has pricing power independent of Wall Street,” he said.
That grassroots dynamic is what made doge culturally relevant and what separates it from tokens chasing institutional validation, he said.
“As long as the community stays engaged and the memes keep flowing, doge doesn’t need BlackRock’s blessing to move,” Orwick said.
