Okay. I'm going to add my lengthy 2 cents to the question. For the record, I have zero DOGE atm. Also, I should pre-warn that I'm arguing by analogy. I'm assuming that the commonality of human nature will be enough to offset the stretch between two completely different industries.
I've been watching, and dabbling in, the penny stock world in the gold-exploration arena. The high point for a promising gold stock tends to come when it announces exciting sample result after exciting sample result. The excitement spreads like wildfire and the stock takes off. What's interesting - and this phenom is fairly reliable - is that an exploration company with a
serious shot at building a profitable mine has to go through a lot of hoops even after a full feasibility study indicates that it's got a winner. Environmental studies, aboriginal consultation efforts if needed, governmental permissions, and the #1 big barrier: securing the 8-9 figures' worth of capital for constructing the mine. Burrowing underground costs a lot of $$$.
But here's the funny thing, a phenomenon contrary to what the economics textbooks say. As a company lumbers its way to getting the necessary preconditions to building a real mine, its stock tends to...slump. Even some time after it announces the
crucially good news that it's secured the financing to start construction of the mine.
This slump doesn't always happen - it doesn't in red-hot markets - but it happens enough that some old pros buy in at this point and (in effect) get paid for investing in boredom.
Why does this happen? Because the hard scut work is boring to follow, and boredom is an antonym of excitement. Boredom makes excitement-driven punters sell their shares because the next exciting penny has got a grip in their heads. Or, maybe, they sell in disgust because the real good news is doing nothing to the stock. This slow but steady selling pressure isn't countered by sufficient buying pressure. So, the stock slumps even though it's objectively a better speculation because the company's closer to getting real profits in its coffer. Strange, but true.
Dogecoin's community is bigger than ever, and the ecosystem is transitioning to mass acceptance of DOGE as a "real" currency. Objectively, that should make DOGE a better buy right now than when it was at 300 satoshis.
But, the trouble is...building that ecosystem takes a lot of time and involves a lot of scut work by the builders. In other words, it's
boring. To a punter, DOGE's a bore in a room of exciting alts who are still in the blue-sky phase. Never mind that a huge majority of alts will never get beyond blue-sky fantasies; they're still tantalizing and exciting. And DOGE's real growth has become...somewhat boring in comparison.
So, as with the exploration company that's on the build-a-mine track, relative boredom wrt the competition means the price sinks even as it becomes a better bet long-term.
[ "'Long-term'? Oh, you mean next week!"
]