TON Network meme coin $DOGS just dropped after months of hype, and the token soared more than 25% in its first hours of trading. It’s one of the biggest events in the meme coin market this year, breaking into the top 10 meme coins and overtaking leading meme tokens from Base, Solana, and Avalanche.
Investors in $DOGS don’t have much time to sit back and rest on their laurels, however. Another major meme coin ICO, PlayDoge, is coming to an end after raising over $6m, with its DEX debut set for tomorrow.
$DOGS Airdrop Reaches 42m Telegram Users, Surges 25% on Pavel Durov’s Arrest
The $DOGS meme coin airdrop has been planned for months, building anticipation and laying the groundwork for what appears to be the largest crypto airdrop in history.
The token was ultimately sent to more than 42 million Telegram users—anyone who had interacted with the $DOGS mini-app in the months leading up to the airdrop.
$DOGS also listed on 15 centralized exchanges at launch, including Binance, ByBit, OKX, MEXC, Gate.io, and Crypto.com. Binance created a launchpool for its users to buy tokens, sucking up an impressive 4% of the $DOGS tokens supply.
The initial price of $DOGS was set around $0.002 by major exchanges, and a massive rush of trading around the token even knocked out the TON blockchain for 7 hours. At its peak, $DOGS saw more than $7 billion in trading volume.
$DOGS dropped to a price of $0.00118 shortly after launch, mostly as a result of profit-taking from airdrop recipients. But the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov in France electrified the $DOGS community—most of whom are Telegram users—and supercharged trading around $DOGS.
In the last 24 hours, $DOGS rocketed 25% to a price of $0.00163 on trading volume of more than $1.5 billion. It’s a welcome bump for airdrop recipients who held through the initial $DOGS sell-off and indicates that this token could hold its place as the biggest meme coin on TON.
As of this writing, $DOGS has a market cap of more than $810 million and is the 8th-largest meme coin by market cap. It looks set to overtake leading Base meme coin $BRETT, and could soon put Solana meme coin $BONK in its sights.
PlayDoge Presale Ends Tomorrow After $6.5m Raise, Preps for Potential 10x Launch
$DOGS isn’t the only dog-themed meme coin making waves in the market right now. PlayDoge, a play-to-earn crypto game and meme token based around the ultra-popular doge meme, just raised $6.5 million in its crypto presale and is gearing up for a massive launch.
There’s now just one day remaining in the PlayDoge presale, so investors have to hurry if they want to lock in $PLAY before it hits exchanges.
Analysts like Jacob Bury, ClayBro, and Crypto Boy have predicted $PLAY could rocket 10x-20x or more after launch—far exceeding the gain in $DOGS.
The secret to PlayDoge’s success is its play[to-earn game, which is modeled on the companion pet gameplay pioneered by Tamagotchi in the 1990s.
In PlayDoge, players get a virtual doge companion and earn $PLAY tokens as they care for it. They can also take their doge on digital adventures inspired by 1990s-era video games to earn even more $PLAY.
While anyone can join PlayDoge, only players who already own $PLAY will qualify for play-to-earn rewards. That’s created an immense amount of demand for $PLAY during the presale, and demand is likely to surge once the game is ready for launch.
To put PlayDoge’s potential in perspective, Tamagotchi sold 82 million units at its peak in the 1990s. With iOS and Android apps, updated graphics, and play-to-earn rewards at stake, PlayDoge could potentially reach hundreds of millions of players around the world.
During the final hours of the PlayDoge presale, investors can buy $PLAY at a fixed price of $0.00532. The token is expected to list on major Ethereum DEXs like Uniswap and SushiSwap first, then make the jump to centralized exchanges for an even bigger splash.
