Meme-inspired cryptocurrency Dogecoin (DOGE) is now officially the second largest proof-of-work (PoW) crypto in terms of market cap, following the Ethereum network’s proof-of-stake upgrade on September 15. Dogecoin now only trails Bitcoin (BTC) as the biggest proof-of-work cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin (BTC) of course remains miles ahead of Dogecoin’S (DOGE) MARKET CAP OF $7.83 BILLION, though the well-followed meme coin is still easily ahead of the third place PoW cryptocurrency, Ethereum Classic (ETC) (with a market cap of $4.69 billion), Litecoin (LTC) ($4.01 billion) and Monero (XMR) ($2.65 billion).
One Dogecoin supporter appeared to be in skepticism of Dogecoin’s rise to become the second-largest PoW cryptocurrency, saying “who would have thought that this would happen? Congrats #Dogefam.”
Though it wasn’t taken well by everyone. One Twitter user replying to a tweet about the news asked how people could take the crypto industry seriously with a memecoin so close to the top spot, highlighting the need to remove “useless coins” from public view.
But Dogecoin may also soon find itself challenging against ETHPoW – the Ethereum PoW hard fork chain that will continue mining, according to the official Twitter account of the ETHPoW, which is currently priced at $13.64.
Ethereum’s transition to proof-of-stake may have added burden on PoW-powered cryptocurrency networks to transition to a more sustainable consensus mechanism.
Lachlan Feeney, the founder and CEO of Australian-based blockchain development agency Labrys said “the pressure is on” Bitcoin (BTC) now to justify the PoW system over the long term.”
He added that “reluctance to carry out its own transition to PoS will be huge.”
In the meantime, the Dogecoin Foundation has been considering a transition of Dogecoin to a proof-of-stake after first hinting at the shift in Sept 2021, which was put forward by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who is also an advisor for the Dogecoin Foundation.
In Dec. 2021, the Dogecoin (DOGE) Foundation released its “Dogecoin Trialmap” which proposed to build a Dogecoin “community staking” version that is similar to PoS.
“Such a version would allow all Dogecoin users to stake their DOGE and get extra tokens for supporting the network,” the Dogecoin Foundation said.
Though, little progress has been made since then, as it still seems to be in “proposal” status according to the Dogecoin website.
“The potential for a large regulatory battle is certainly there,” he added.
Dogecoin (DOGE) is presently priced at $0.06 at the time of writing.
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