When evaluating a cryptocurrency, such as Dogecoin, it’s important to know whether it has a supply cap, since that can have an impact on the long-term value of the coin.
Bitcoin, the first and largest cryptocurrency by market cap, is known for having a 21 million coin hard cap, meaning there will only ever be 21 million BTC in existence. Similarly, XRP has a cap of 100 million. However, all cryptocurrencies are different and many do not have a supply cap.
Here’s what you need to know when it comes to the Dogecoin cap.
What Is a Cap in Crypto?
A supply cap, or cap, refers to the upper limit of the amount of new cryptocurrency coins that can be created.
Once miners have mined a certain number of coins, the protocol will stop distributing block rewards, and miners will only collect transaction fees. For Bitcoin, this point is estimated to be reached by about the year 2140, for other types of crypto the cap will be reached at different times.
💡 Recommended: How Many Bitcoins Are Left?
Does Dogecoin Have a Cap?
No, Dogecoin does not have a cap, meaning there is no Dogecoin supply limit. But there is a fixed reward of 10,000 DOGE for each block of transactions added to the Dogecoin blockchain (more on that below).
Thus, miners have an incentive to mine for Dogecoins. After they mine Dogecoin, they can move it from their wallets onto a crypto exchange where other investors can buy it. But as more miners come online, more of them will dump new coins onto the market, causing the price to fall.
Either way, it’s important to understand how the lack of a Dogecoin cap (i.e. the fact that there is no Dogecoin supply limit) can affect this crypto’s long-term value.
How Dogecoin Works
Developers Billy Marcus and Jackson Palmer launched Dogecoin as a low-stakes way for people to learn about cryptocurrency. The meme coin or joke coin, with its famous Shiba Inu logo, traded at a tiny fraction of a penny so people could send it to each other for fun while learning how to use crypto wallets.
In 2018, as cryptocurrencies caught the attention of mainstream investors, the altcoin reached more than $0.01. In 2021, Dogecoin attained record highs around $0.70 before crashing down to about $0.06, as of September 7, 2022.
DOGE is a proof-of-work (PoW) crypto, which means that mining Dogecoin involves running powerful computers known as nodes that process transactions for the network. In exchange for this work, miners receive block rewards of 10,000 newly minted DOGE.
A new block of transactions is mined roughly every minute on the Dogecoin network. The block reward is 10,000 DOGE, or about $600 as of September 7, 2022. Unlike Bitcoin, which has a hard cap of 21 million and releases fewer coins over time, there is no Dogecoin supply cap.
Is There a Limit to the Dogecoin Supply?
Is Dogecoin unlimited? Yes, as of September 7, 2022, there is no Dogecoin supply limit. But the reality is that 10,000 DOGE are mined every minute, which adds up to about 14.4 million DOGE per day, and over 5 billion DOGE per year added to the supply.
Although some argue that the vast number DOGE may depress the price.
Will Dogecoin Ever Have a Cap?
It’s hard to say for certain whether there will ever be a Dogecoin cap. In theory, DOGE developers could choose to implement a cap on the creation of new coins, but to date there hasn’t been much discussion about this.
Sometimes the crypto community decides to alter the protocol of a currency. An active cryptocurrency needs periodic upgrades to its software to remain functional, relevant, and secure.
For now, it seems reasonable to work from the assumption that there might never be a Dogecoin cap limit.
Has Dogecoin Ever Been Capped?
In the eight years since Dogecoin’s creation, there’s never been a cap on the crypto. In fact, for much of those eight years, no one thought much about DOGE at all and it traded for less than a penny.
In 2017 when cryptocurrency began reaching the masses in a big way, the valuation of DOGE hit $1 billion. Many investors considered this a sign of irrational exuberance in the crypto markets, as DOGE had no special features (it’s simply a clone of Litecoin, which is a clone of Bitcoin), and hadn’t had a developer update in three years at that time.
Nonetheless, in 2021 DOGE took a seat among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap, a feat few would have thought possible just a year earlier.
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3 Reasons Why Dogecoin Doesn’t Have a Cap
Some say the decision to not cap the supply of DOGE was intentional on the part of developers. They wanted to create a currency that people would be more likely to spend. DOGE was created as a joke, but it was also intended to be used for transactional purposes.
The DOGE developers set out to create a cryptocurrency that would differ from Bitcoin in several key ways. Most if not all of those ways stem from the fact that there is no Dogecoin max supply.
Here are three reasons that are thought to have been big factors contributing to the decision to never implement a cap on Dogecoin.
1. Cheap Transactions
Dogecoin is an altcoin that developers created for spending meant to be spent, so they intentionally made it inflationary (meaning that the supply of DOGE increases, or inflates over time).
By contrast, Bitcoin is deflationary (the supply of BTC decreases over time), which makes its value relative to inflationary currencies likely to continue rising. As a result, BTC has become more of a store of value investment, making many investors want to HODL it.
If you think your Bitcoin might be worth twice as much next year, you’re less likely to use it to make purchases in the short term. But a currency like DOGE, with no supply cap, is more likely to be spent. People will use it today, while it still has value, and be less likely to hold it for the long-term as they know it’s unlikely to increase in price.
2. New Coins Forever
It’s estimated that about 20% of all the Bitcoins mined to-date have been lost forever. This happens when people forget their wallet password or lose a piece of physical hardware they used to store Bitcoin. This makes the supply of BTC even more deflationary, as those coins won’t be replaced. Meaning: A deflating supply means that the value may rise over time, assuming demand doesn’t decrease.
With Dogecoin, there will always be plenty of new coins. Even if someone loses millions of DOGE, the long-term impact is minimal, since there are constantly new coins going into circulation. With no supply cap, lost coins don’t matter as much.
3. Mining Longevity
At some point, there will be no more Bitcoins left to mine. When that happens, the only monetary incentive for mining BTC to keep the network secure will be transaction fees.
In theory, this could sustain miners interest in mining DOGE.
Pros and Cons of a Capless Cryptocurrency
Should there be a Dogecoin cap? It’s a good question, given the relative successes and failures of DOGE thus far. Here are some advantages and disadvantages.
Pros
By keeping DOGE as an inflationary currency, it’s more likely that people will spend it rather than hold it as a store of value.
With no Dogecoin cap, theoretically miners will always be able to mine more DOGE and keep earning Dogecoin as a reward.
Cons
Because it’s inflationary, DOGE has less appeal for buy-and-hold investors.
With its unlimited supply, the value of DOGE may never rise much above $1.00. At its peak in May of 2021, it was worth about $0.70.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| DOGE has value as a transactional currency. | Low demand from buy-and-hold investors. |
| Miners can always mine more DOGE and get rewards. | Price unlikely to rise above historic high of $0.70. |
How Many Dogecoin Are in Circulation?
According to CoinMarketCap data, there are about 132.6 billion DOGE in circulation as of Sept. 7, 2022. Keep in mind, 10,000 new DOGE are mined every minute, so the number will be higher by the time you read this.
It’s also worth noting that more than half of DOGE’s total supply is held by only about 20 different wallet addresses, making it one of the most unevenly distributed of the different types of cryptocurrency.
How Many New Dogecoin Are Created Every Day?
Every time a new block of transactions is added to the Dogecoin blockchain, 10,000 DOGE are mined. That’s about 14.4 million DOGE added per day, or about 5.26 billion per year.
How Much Dogecoin is Left?
There is an unlimited amount of DOGE left to be mined. Just like U.S. dollars or any other national fiat currency, there’s no upward limit on the creation of Dogecoins.
There are some key differences between DOGE and fiat currencies, of course, like the fact that anyone can mine Dogecoin, but only central banks can print money.
The Takeaway
The answer to the question, Will Dogecoin ever be capped? is likely a “no.” Nothing is for certain, as developers could decide to alter the Dogecoin protocol, but the history of the coin and the ethos of the community surrounding it suggest that they will not enact a cap.
Just as the Bitcoin community tends to value scarcity and a fixed supply cap, the Dogecoin community tends to value low transaction fees, large block rewards, and the other benefits that can arise from not having a supply cap. For investors, there may be a place for both types of cryptocurrency in their portfolio.
FAQ
Is there a cap on the supply of Dogecoin?
No, Dogecoin does not have a cap on its supply.
Will DOGE be capped at $1?
At the moment, there are no signs that DOGE will have a price cap or a supply cap.
Is the supply of Dogecoin infinite?
In theory, the supply of Dogecoin could be infinite. In reality, though, the annual supply is somewhat limited by the block reward, which is 10,000 DOGE per minute.
Photo credit: iStock/Amax Photo
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