On 8 December 2013, a brand new, “joke currency” was introduced to crypto world. Despite being inspired by an internet meme, Dogecoin quickly gained global support and reached crazy numbers in market capitalization (US$60 million into months to be exact). A huge enthusiastic community got involved into the project, which was indeed the biggest advantage of Dogecoin. Regular improvements in technology and adoption of the currency as a tipping service among users kept it as one of the most interesting players on the market.
Sadly, Dogecoin is not promising in terms of long-term growth and actual mass adoption anymore, at least compared to other major cryptocurrencies. Engagement of enthusiasts is vitally important in an innovative and extremely competitive blockchain field, and Dogecoin has been losing this privilege for a year now. The community is much less active and no important upgrades has been introduced, which is pretty logical without any mission or strive for innovation. Hype of the market in last several months didn’t avoid Dogecoin and price of the currency went up, but tons of other altcoins did the same- exponentially increased interest in cryptos effected the whole market. Dogecoin was simply hyped up as yet another tool for getting huge ROI. Of course, the price might continue to go up in near future due to speculation, but unless the community regains its power and starts to innovate, there is no real reason for this coin succeed in a long term.
All in all, I would say that in an extremely competitive and unstable market that we are currently seeing, there is almost no way to maintain and expand your influence without adding zero additional value to the market and relying just on hype. So, if you want to see Dogecoin go to the moon, persuade the community to do the right thing- improve and innovate.