Why Dogecoin continues to attract long-term hodlers

DOGE’s price is up over 140% in the last 24 hours and the altcoin is currently occupying the 7th rank according to market capitalization. The volume of perpetual swaps has hit a new ATH of $36.99 billion, increasing by 1877% since April 12 and all Dogecoin HODLers are profitable at the current price level.

The important question for retail traders is, is this a measure of speculation or leverage? During the ongoing altcoin rally, retail traders are bullish and top altcoins are overleveraged. In the case of DOGE, less than 12% HODLers who held DOGE for less than a month, are profitable, just as the HODLers from a year and before.

What separates DOGE from other alts is that 61% of DOGE HODLers have held the coin for over a year. This is clearly not the case for most other top altcoins that offer double and triple digit gains. Most altcoins have high short-term ROI, low long-term ROI, and interestingly, DOGE is the opposite. At times the risk-reward ratio is skewed and out of whack when it comes to altcoins that are pumping. The fact that DOGE has a higher market capitalization compared to Tesla, consistently for over a year makes it clear that this isn’t mere speculation that’s driving the price.

Since April 13, 2021, DOGE’s price has rallied from $0.07 to $0.34. DOGE’s short-term ROI is as shown in the chart below.

DOGE Short-term ROI || Source: Messari

Based on the above chart, the short-term ROI for DOGE is relatively higher when compared to other top altcoins. The long-term ROI has been negative for DOGE, in the previous years. However, since Bitcoin’s rally in 2020 and Q1 of 2021, DOGE has made a comeback unlike DeFi tokens, and most altcoins.

The demand for DOGE may be primarily driven by the early speculation from Elon Musk and Crypto Twitter, however, the current price action and metrics have changed DOGE’s price rally to a sustainable one. What’s most interesting is that DOGE’s current correlation with Bitcoin is less than 20%. Despite that, when Bitcoin is rallying, DOGE is rallying with it, alongside top altcoins.