Dogecoin has increased by 21% in the past week, outperforming major meme coins such as Shiba Inu, Pepe, and Bonk. As of the time of writing, DOGE is trading at $0.38. Shiba Inu, PEPE, and BONK have increased by 7%, 10%, and 14% respectively.

This increase stems from the renewed interest of whale investors. On January 3, whale investors purchased over 1.08 billion DOGE, worth $413 million.

According to the blockchain analysis platform Blockchair, on the same day, a transfer of 399.9 million DOGE (valued at approximately $144.9 million) was made from Binance to an unknown wallet. Such transactions are typically considered bullish, indicating that the selling pressure has eased as the tokens are transferred to a private wallet.

Data from CryptoRank shows that January has been the best - performing month for DOGE, with an average return of 85% - far exceeding any other month.

In January 2021, Dogecoin soared by 711%, while in January 2014, its return rate was 269%. April is the second - best - performing month for Dogecoin, with a 546% increase in April 2021 and an 84.9% increase in 2018.

Alex Thorn, the head of research at Galaxy Digital, predicts that DOGE could soar by 170% to reach $1, pushing its market capitalization to $100 billion.

He wrote in Galaxy's 2025 cryptocurrency forecast on January 2: "Dogecoin will eventually reach $1. As the world's most famous and oldest memecoin, its market capitalization will reach $100 billion. However, the market capitalization of Dogecoin will be surpassed by the Department of Government Efficiency, which will identify and successfully implement cuts exceeding Dogecoin's high market capitalization in 2025."

The recent momentum of DOGE also follows the announcement by the elected US President Donald Trump to establish a new government agency called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), appointing Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy as the heads of the agency.

Meanwhile, the open interest of DOGE has increased by more than 50%, indicating a rise in investor participation. According to CoinGlass, the open interest of DOGE has grown from $2 billion to $3 billion in the past five days.

On January 2, the Canadian investment firm Spirit Blockchain Capital announced plans to generate income from its Dogecoin holdings. This move is similar to MicroStrategy's Bitcoin reserve strategy, which uses its BTC to generate an additional source of revenue.

Spirit Blockchain aims to deploy its DOGE reserves into decentralized finance protocols, potentially offering yield - based products to institutional and retail investors.