Key Points
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The price of Dogecoin has exploded more than once in the past.
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By doing this, some investors have become millionaires.
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The conditions it will need to fly again will be difficult to find and unpredictable.
- 10 stocks we like better than Dogecoin ›
Every crypto bull market features the same recurring fantasy of buying a coin with a cute animal on it, like maybe Dogecoin (CRYPTO:DOGE)then a short time later, waking up rich after going to the moon. It’s a charming story. It’s also the kind of story that politely and implicitly asks not to check the math, among other things.
So can buying Dogecoin now leave you with at least $1 million before the end of 2026? Let’s crunch the numbers and look at the investment case here to understand it.
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The numbers don’t look good here
As of early November, Dogecoin’s market capitalization was around $25 billion. For a meme coin, there is literally nothing better than having a gargantuan size like that.
If you invest an irresponsible amount like $10,000, you would need a 100-fold gain before you become a millionaire. But this implies that Dogecoin’s market cap is expected to jump to around $2.5 trillion. For context, market leader Bitcoin the value is approximately $2.1 trillion.
Therefore, if Dogecoin were to be worth more than Bitcoin in 2026, you would need a powerful new narrative, and it would need to be strong enough to trigger a tsunami of new capital over the next 14 months. There is currently no evidence that such a narrative is going to happen, nor is there much hope that the technology behind the coin will take a leap forward.
Additionally, it would almost certainly be necessary to have extremely permissive macroeconomic conditions, including very loose monetary policy and very low interest rates, paving the way for large amounts of liquidity to enter the crypto sector. Central bank support, in the form of printing large amounts of additional fiat currency, is necessary to begin considering Dogecoin reaching parity with Bitcoin. Other forms of policy support, such as perhaps tariff refunds or even stimulus checks, could also boost investors’ desire to take risks by purchasing the coin.
In other words, the bar for a 100-fold increase in takeoff in just over a year is astronomically high.
There are better options
Not surprisingly, millionaire maker results typically come from assets with mechanisms that increase value over time, like cash flow flowing back to holders, targeted supply control like automated token burns that tighten supply, or platforms that become essential infrastructure so demand grows organically. Dogecoin, by design, has no token burning mechanism, no cash flow, and no hard cap on its supply. So it probably won’t make someone a millionaire, especially not in 2026.
That being said, there will always be investors eager to buy the coin regardless.
Could frothy sentiment, celebrity attention, or a speculative bull market drive the price of Dogecoin higher again next year? Yes, it’s possible. And the only investors who will benefit from this will be the ones you were willing to accept with low odds at the moment. But there’s no real investment thesis for buying it; if you invest in it, in reality, what you’re doing is gambling, and it’s not a good habit to get into.
Again, markets can get excited and meme coins can move far and fast, especially when conditions are right, but that simply doesn’t matter when there is no way to justify an investment in a particular coin. Assuming 2026 is dynamic for risk assets, a strong year for Dogecoin is possible, if not an outcome everyone should bet on.
But a moonshot project from here, in a single year, while facing constant coin issuance and without a new value generation engine, requires inordinate optimism – and it almost certainly won’t happen.
Should you invest $1,000 in Dogecoin right now?
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Alex Carchidi has positions in Bitcoin. The Motley Fool posts and recommends Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
