India may have missed out on the Dogecoin wave in the cryptocurrency sector, but experts foresee traction for the token in the coming months. On Tuesday, US President-elect Donald Trump said that Dogecoin supporter Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will lead a newly created Department of Government Efficiency or “DOGE.” While the department remains outside the US government, the nod to the cryptocurrency endorsed by Musk resulted in an increase in Dogecoin prices over the week. 

As per data sourced from CoinMarketCap’s website, Dogecoin’s volume increased from $6.24 billion on November 10 to $28.32 billion on November 12, while its market cap grew from $35.15 billion to $63.08 billion.

Experts speaking to businessline say that the trend will hit India as well. Sidharth Sogani Jain, Founder of Crebaco and CEO of Blue Aster Capital, was optimistic about Dogecoin’s popularity in India, as he no longer saw the crypto as just a meme coin. While earlier, Indians were more familiar with Pepe and Shiba Inu coins, Jain noted that Dogecoin’s community in India has grown over the years.

“If you had a phone and were the only one in the world with one, who would you call? But the value of your phone goes up when a lot of people join the network. Doge has become very acceptable, people know about it. That’s why its market cap has gone up,” he said. Currently, Dogecoin’s market cap is at $57.6 billion and is the sixth-largest token in the crypto space.

On the other hand, Balaji Srihari, Business Head of CoinSwitch, said that the company has observed growing popularity in India for Dogecoin but remains sceptical about how long this popularity will persist.

“Sustaining this momentum may be challenging due to its limited utility and retail-driven volatility. Key factors like Bitcoin’s market performance and potential Musk-led integrations could determine whether DOGE reaches its previous highs or faces a pullback. At the end of the day, it’s a highly volatile crypto, and investors should remain cautious while investing,” said Srihari.

However, Pranav Agarwal, Head of Investors at Foundership, an accelerator venture capital, said the narrative for Dogecoin will be very strong in India over the next 12-18 months.

“Dogecoin will see a lot of traction. There’s also a new token called DOGE, which is for the Department Of Government Efficiency and has already reached a new market cap of $400-500 million within three days. So, with this meta-trend of meme coins and the Dogecoin community, coupled with the Department of Government Efficiency incident, I think Dogecoin is going to be very popular this season, and everyone is going to end up holding some,“ Agarwal told businessline.

Despite the prediction of an upward trend, Jain said that India’s move on crypto regulation will also play a role on the Dogecoin trend, “The current exchanges are not regulated. I believe India will keep losing money in crypto if not regulated. The exchanges aren’t transparent at all. Self-regulation is not the way forward,” he said.

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