Dogecoin has long been the subject of controversy and ridicule, as the dog-themed cryptocurrency has no use case outside of being a competitor to Bitcoin, but with Dogechain this may no longer be the case. Dogecoin was created during the first cryptocurrency bull-run of 2013, a time when dozens of "altcoins" were popping up to become the next Bitcoin, bringing a wave of speculation and absurdity not seen since the dotcom bubble. Software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer decided to poke fun at the industry's absurdity and created the Dogecoin cryptocurrency, which has surprisingly survived in the years since then for its comedic value.
People have often claimed that Dogecoin will someday reach $1, but without any real utility there's no reason to believe it will ever sustain a price at or above that level without collapsing back down. However, ever since Elon Musk began tweeting about DOGE its popularity has skyrocketed, and Tesla even began accepting it as payment for merchandise, but without smart contracts DOGE is still next to useless.
Thanks to the Dogechain network, DOGE can enjoy the capabilities and use cases of Ethereum smart contracts. However, Dogechain is very new, and due to several factors some members of the crypto community are rightly skeptical of it. On July 21, the Dogechain developers announced the Aug. 1 launch to discuss its capabilities and future. Taking everything with a grain of crypto-salt, Dogechain does everything for Dogecoin that Polygon does for Ethereum, and uses the Polygon Edge framework to provide second-layer smart blockchain contracts for DOGE holders that are fast, cheap, and environmentally friendly. Users are able to pay the network's transaction fees in DOGE, which eliminates the need to hold other cryptocurrencies (like ETH) to use smart contracts. Having been online for six weeks now the new blockchain is functioning as hoped, and is experiencing an explosion of new users and tokens excited to use their DOGE in smart contracts. The blockchain is currently in its "Wild West stage," where crypto scams and pump-and-dump schemes are rampant, but should it survive the next few months, reputable projects will begin to develop on it.
Is Dogechain Legit Or A Scam?
Dogechain has some red flags to consider. First, it has no affiliation to Dogecoin, and Dogecoin developer cb_doge took to Twitter on July 27 to make that fact known, but has not said anything else about Dogechain since then. Second, the project's developers are not doxxed, and anonymous teams in crypto are often a major red flag. Finally, to use Dogechain users must "bridge" their DOGE, which means their DOGE is locked inside a Dogecoin wallet controlled by Dogechain, and blockchain bridges are vulnerable to hacks. These factors mean Dogechain should be given a wait-and-see approach before anyone trusts it with DOGE they aren't okay with losing.
On the other hand, the project's Discord server and social media accounts are very active, the developers are in touch with the community, and Dogechain's Github repository has undergone security auditing from Beosin Blockchain Security as recently as July 7. While these don't indicate a 100 percent certainty that the Dogechain bridge won't suffer a tragic hack someday in the future, they do provide enough assurances to be cautiously optimistic. A transition to full "Proof of Stake" and another round of security audits are both needed before users can trust the project better, and if the core developer team reveals their identities and partners with the Dogecoin core developers then that would go a long way toward solidifying community trust.
Assuming good intent, the launch of Dogechain may be the start of a new era for everyone's favorite dog-themed memecoin, and if successful could end Dogecoin's lack of utility. On the other hand, an anonymous team operating independently of Dogecoin's developers who require users to lock DOGE into their system raises red flags. Time will tell what Dogechain's true intentions are, and waiting for further development is better than getting wrecked.
Source: Dogechain, cb_doge/Twitter