Fans of the Actual Dogecoin Cryptocurrency Are Disgusted With Elon Musk's Antics

Much Sad

Formerly known for rockets and electric cars, Elon Musk has emerged as a central personality of the Trump administration as he's hyper-publicly torn through the federal government, leaving a trail of lawsuits and investigations in his wake.

As that drama has played out across the United States and the rest of the world, one particularly niche group has looked on with horror: early fans of Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency originally started to make fun of meme coins, but which spiked significantly in value after Musk became publicly obsessed with it, and has now become inextricably linked to Musk's legacy as he's organized his efforts with the Trump White House under a group called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

"Elon corrupted Doge," one fed-up user posted on Reddit in a thread full of similar gripes. "When Elon first got involved I was excited. Over the past couple years that excitement has turned sour. I have decided that I cannot morally be involved with any thing related to that sub human."

Others concurred, sometimes in eviscerating terms.

"Time to either remove Musk from the project or change the slogan: Do Only Genocide Everyday," one wrote. "These creeps have started suggesting actual ethnic cleansing. Feels disgusting to be a part of this thing." Another commented that Dogecoin "was supposed to be a fun crypto, not associated with right wing politics." wrote another.

Coin Community

The rejection of Musk's crypto-hegemony is a reminder of what crypto once was to some: a niche if forward-looking community of blockchain nerds brought together by the promise of market egalitarianism. Dogecoin is probably the epitome of that; its origins lie in a 2013 meme making fun of speculative altcoins. It was  supposed to remain worthless, a joke allowing Reddit users to tip each other pennies as kudos for funny posts.

Those golden days are now long gone as high-moneyed players like Musk have toppled crypto's optimism, turning it into yet another vehicle for speculation and profit framed as a social good. In the new crypto order, rug pulls, scams, and fraud are the order of the day, despite marketing that it will usher in a "new phase of capitalism and economic freedom."

And Dogecoin has now become the very thing it set out to lampoon — whatever it started as, it's now literally the face of a soft-coup usurping the power of the federal government.

As legislators jump to force cryptocurrency into public trust funds and the White House makes moves to legitimize crypto as a monetary asset, it's imperative to remember the lesson these Dogecoin users have learned the hard way: that the purpose of a system is what it does.

On Reddit, that chagrin played out in sometimes startlingly peculiar ways. One former Dogecoin investor even chose to eulogize the good times in an AI-generated Reggae tune reminiscing about a moment when Dogecoin users rallied to fundraise tens of thousands of dollars for the Jamaican Olympic bobsled team (no we are not kidding.) You can hear that endearing if misguided attempt on X-formerly-Twitter — also now owned by Musk — but we don't recommend it.

More on crypto: Ivanka Trump Warns of $IVANKA Meme Coin That's Grifting Her Fans Without Even Paying Her

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