InterviewUnlocking utility for world's biggest meme coin
Korea is one of dogecoin's most supportive markets
Jordan Jefferson, founder and CEO of DogeOS / Courtesy of DogeOS
HONG KONG — Macroeconomic headwinds are weighing on cryptocurrency prices, while rising institutional participation has tempered volatility and cooled speculation. As a result, a growing share of digital assets now sits idle on centralized exchanges.
Dogecoin — the poster child of the global meme coin market — is no exception. Roughly $23 billion worth of the token currently sits on exchanges worldwide, largely unmoved.
Even without a clear incentive, the coin featuring the iconic sideways-glancing Shiba Inu dog has garnered widespread attention thanks to its roots in internet meme culture and the enthusiasm of its online community, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk. According to CoinMarketCap, its market capitalization stood at $14.11 billion as of Thursday.
Jordan Jefferson, founder and CEO of DogeOS, said dogecoin’s true value lies in its strong community, but he finds it problematic that users have not been benefiting from the billions of dollars in dogecoin trading volume.
"Dogecoin is so big as a cryptocurrency, and it has such a passionate group of people using it and believing in it, but no one was really building dedicated apps, experiences or businesses in and around dogecoin," Jefferson said. "It is such a huge, underserved community."
DogeOS is an application development layer for the dogecoin ecosystem that Jefferson and his team began building four years ago. One of the digital wallets developed by Jefferson, called MyDoge, already serves more than 500,000 users.
Through DogeOS, developers will be able to build a wide range of services integrated with the dogecoin ecosystem, including games, financial applications and artificial intelligence tools. Jefferson said he has attracted hundreds of developers to build new projects without doing what many blockchain ecosystems typically do — offering large incentives and grants — thanks to dogecoin’s massive community.
"There is such a passion and support interacting with users," Jefferson said. "There's no point in dogecoin just having the same apps as everything else in crypto, like solana and ethereum. We need to focus on why there's a special culture here and build, you know, unique stuff that really suits that audience."
Last May, recognizing its potential, DogeOS raised $6.9 million led by Polychain Capital, one of the largest cryptocurrency venture funds managing more than $2 billion.
Jefferson said Korean investors are among the major beneficiaries of his project, as they are heavy investors in dogecoin. Recalling events he hosted in Korea, he said he has never held gatherings in any other country with more attendees.
He added that Korea is something of a mirror of the broader dogecoin community, with strong retail participation but relatively low on-chain activity.
"Hey, there's actually opportunities to participate on-chain, and you know, it can further benefit you," Jefferson said.