And maybe that’s okay. Dogecoin never asked to be respectable. It was always the absurd middle finger to the seriousness of finance. A $23 billion “joke” that outlived 99% of “serious” projects is legacy enough.
So yeah, the Grayscale Dogecoin ETF launched to crickets. Much volume? Not so much wow.
But in its quiet way, it might have just written the final chapter of the 2021 meme-coin saga – proving once again that in crypto, the jokes sometimes have the last laugh, even if nobody shows up to hear the punchline anymore.
Or… scene.
Either way, I still have my 2013-era Dogecoin in my wallet. And I’m not selling it for a GDOG share. Some things are sacred.
See you at $1.
Disclosure: Author holds BTC, ETH, and a very old Dogecoin, and zero GDOG shares at the time of writing. Opinions are his own and the dog is still adorable.
The Bigger Picture for Meme Coins & ETFs
The GDOG launch is actually the perfect litmus test for where we are in the cycle. In 2021, Dogecoin had no fundamental use case yet commanded a $90 billion market cap purely on meme energy. In 2025, it has payment integration with X, Tesla merch acceptance, a spot ETF, and still can barely attract $1.4 million on launch day. That tells you the market has matured – or at least the easy retail money has left the building.
The winners now are ecosystems that actually ship product (Solana, Base, TON) or have regulatory moats (Bitcoin, Ethereum). Pure meme coins can still pump like PEPE or POPCAT when sentiment flips, but getting traditional capital to allocate via regulated vehicles? That era feels over, at least until the next true mania phase.
And maybe that’s okay. Dogecoin never asked to be respectable. It was always the absurd middle finger to the seriousness of finance. A $23 billion “joke” that outlived 99% of “serious” projects is legacy enough.
So yeah, the Grayscale Dogecoin ETF launched to crickets. Much volume? Not so much wow.
But in its quiet way, it might have just written the final chapter of the 2021 meme-coin saga – proving once again that in crypto, the jokes sometimes have the last laugh, even if nobody shows up to hear the punchline anymore.
Or… scene.
Either way, I still have my 2013-era Dogecoin in my wallet. And I’m not selling it for a GDOG share. Some things are sacred.
See you at $1.
Disclosure: Author holds BTC, ETH, and a very old Dogecoin, and zero GDOG shares at the time of writing. Opinions are his own and the dog is still adorable.
The Bigger Picture for Meme Coins & ETFs
The GDOG launch is actually the perfect litmus test for where we are in the cycle. In 2021, Dogecoin had no fundamental use case yet commanded a $90 billion market cap purely on meme energy. In 2025, it has payment integration with X, Tesla merch acceptance, a spot ETF, and still can barely attract $1.4 million on launch day. That tells you the market has matured – or at least the easy retail money has left the building.
The winners now are ecosystems that actually ship product (Solana, Base, TON) or have regulatory moats (Bitcoin, Ethereum). Pure meme coins can still pump like PEPE or POPCAT when sentiment flips, but getting traditional capital to allocate via regulated vehicles? That era feels over, at least until the next true mania phase.
And maybe that’s okay. Dogecoin never asked to be respectable. It was always the absurd middle finger to the seriousness of finance. A $23 billion “joke” that outlived 99% of “serious” projects is legacy enough.
So yeah, the Grayscale Dogecoin ETF launched to crickets. Much volume? Not so much wow.
But in its quiet way, it might have just written the final chapter of the 2021 meme-coin saga – proving once again that in crypto, the jokes sometimes have the last laugh, even if nobody shows up to hear the punchline anymore.
Or… scene.
Either way, I still have my 2013-era Dogecoin in my wallet. And I’m not selling it for a GDOG share. Some things are sacred.
See you at $1.
Disclosure: Author holds BTC, ETH, and a very old Dogecoin, and zero GDOG shares at the time of writing. Opinions are his own and the dog is still adorable.
I remember 2021 like it was yesterday. Dogecoin was everywhere – Elon tweeted, the price mooned, Saturday Night Live happened, and for a brief, glorious moment it felt like the joke cryptocurrency was about to flip the entire financial system on its head. Fast-forward to November 2025 and the first-ever spot Dogecoin ETF finally hits the tape on NYSE Arca under the ticker GDOG. This should have been the victory lap. Instead, it opened with roughly $1.4 million in first-day trading volume and barely caused a ripple. To put that in perspective, that’s less than many mid-cap stocks do on a random Tuesday.
Honestly? The quiet debut caught even the biggest Doge believers off guard.
A Launch Four Years in the Making Ends With a Whimper
Grayscale has been fighting for meme-coin ETF approval longer than most people have held their actual Dogecoin. They first filed for a Dogecoin trust conversion back when the coin was trading pennies. After the Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs finally broke the ice in 2024, the path opened for altcoins. XRP and Solana ETFs launched earlier this year with respectable (sometimes spectacular) first-week inflows. Everyone assumed Dogecoin – the original meme coin with the most recognizable brand in crypto – would at least match or beat those numbers.
It didn’t.
“We were modeling $50–150 million in realistic first-day flow scenarios for GDOG based on brand recognition alone,” one senior ETF analyst told me off-record the night before launch. “If it does under $10 million I’ll be shocked.”
Shock achieved.
The Cold Hard Numbers
- First-day trading volume: ~$1.4 million
- Shares outstanding at open: ~94,700
- Management fee: 0.35% (currently waived → 0.00% expense ratio for first 3 months or until AUM threshold)
- DOGE spot price reaction: +2.1% (basically market noise)
- Comparative launches 2025: Solana ETFs averaged ~$68M week-one, XRP ETFs ~$42M
Yes, you read that right. The dog coin that once rallied 15,000% in six months because Elon changed his Twitter picture now has an ETF that can’t even clear seven figures on day one.
Why the Muted Reception? Five Theories Floating Around Trading Desks
1. ETF Fatigue is Real
The market has seen roughly 20 new crypto ETF launches in 2025 alone. Bitcoin, Ethereum, layered staking funds, Solana, XRP, even a Cardano one that somehow got approved. Retail and institutions are saturated. The “first-mover” narrative only works once.
2. Brand vs. Investment Thesis
Dogecoin’s greatest strength – being the ultimate meme – is also its Achilles heel for traditional allocators. Pension funds and RIAs still can’t justify “internet joke turned global brand” in a 40-page IPS document, no matter how large the market cap.
3. Fee Waiver Timing Feels Desperate
Grayscale waived the 35 bp fee entirely for the launch period. That usually signals strong confidence you’ll gather assets quickly and can afford to run at zero for a bit. When the biggest name in the space leads with a fee waiver on a flagship meme product… the market smells blood.
4. Competition is Already Lined Up
Bitwise has a competing Dogecoin ETF in the queue with a permanent 0.20% fee and better seed capital rumors. 21Shares and others are close behind. Why rush into the first one when cheaper, potentially more efficient versions arrive in Q1 2026?
5. The Joke Aged
Let’s be brutally honest for a second. The “Dogecoin to a dollar” chant peaked in 2021. The cultural moment has passed for mainstream finance. Today the serious altcoin conversation revolves around Solana ecosystem growth, AI tokens, RWA, depin, etc. Doge still has the most normie brand recognition, but it no longer has the narrative momentum.
What Happens Next? Three Realistic Scenarios
Scenario A – Slow Bleed then Death
GDOG limps along under $100M AUM, gets delisted in 18 months, becomes the cautionary tale slide in every “Why Meme Coins Don’t Belong in ETFs” presentation for the next decade.
Scenario B – Elon Ignition 2.0
One perfectly timed rocket emoji or Department of Government Efficiency announcement featuring Dogecoin sends retail rushing in during the fee-waiver window and we look back at launch day as “the dip before the flip.”
Scenario C – Respectable Mid-Tier Altcoin ETF
It settles around $300–800M AUM, trades mostly on arbitrage, and quietly prints 0.35% for Grayscale forever on a $23 billion market-cap coin. Not sexy, but profitable.
My money is on C with a 60% probability, B 30%, A 10%. But never bet against Elon, right?
The Bigger Picture for Meme Coins & ETFs
The GDOG launch is actually the perfect litmus test for where we are in the cycle. In 2021, Dogecoin had no fundamental use case yet commanded a $90 billion market cap purely on meme energy. In 2025, it has payment integration with X, Tesla merch acceptance, a spot ETF, and still can barely attract $1.4 million on launch day. That tells you the market has matured – or at least the easy retail money has left the building.
The winners now are ecosystems that actually ship product (Solana, Base, TON) or have regulatory moats (Bitcoin, Ethereum). Pure meme coins can still pump like PEPE or POPCAT when sentiment flips, but getting traditional capital to allocate via regulated vehicles? That era feels over, at least until the next true mania phase.
And maybe that’s okay. Dogecoin never asked to be respectable. It was always the absurd middle finger to the seriousness of finance. A $23 billion “joke” that outlived 99% of “serious” projects is legacy enough.
So yeah, the Grayscale Dogecoin ETF launched to crickets. Much volume? Not so much wow.
But in its quiet way, it might have just written the final chapter of the 2021 meme-coin saga – proving once again that in crypto, the jokes sometimes have the last laugh, even if nobody shows up to hear the punchline anymore.
Or… scene.
Either way, I still have my 2013-era Dogecoin in my wallet. And I’m not selling it for a GDOG share. Some things are sacred.
See you at $1.
Disclosure: Author holds BTC, ETH, and a very old Dogecoin, and zero GDOG shares at the time of writing. Opinions are his own and the dog is still adorable.
