The latest hype in cryptocurrency is the tap-to-earn trend. This genre breaks glass ceilings one after the other, with top-selling tap-to-earn games launching at what seems like a non-stop pace these days. And that's exactly where Dogen comes in.
Dogen is a degen dog—a meme coin on the Solana blockchain currently in its presale stage, which started at the end of August, offering the $DOGEN coin through a self-hosted crypto launchpad on its website. Dogen is an alpha dog who's into stunning women, luxury watches, fine cigars, flashy cars—you get the picture.
But Dogen also seems to have a strange fetish for tap-to-earn games! Otherwise, why would he commit to launching one in his roadmap? We decided to check out the Dogen crypto project and hopefully discover a decent venture. Let's see what we found.
Our first stop was the whitepaper. For a meme coin, it reads nicely. It describes the story behind Dogen and introduces three audits for the same $DOGEN token from different auditors. One audit would be more than enough for such a simple token functionality, but Dogen is a showoff, we guess. The whitepaper also introduces a referral program and reward points mechanism to reward loyal fans.
The tokenomics, referred to as Dogenomics, includes a detailed pie chart showing how the tokens are allocated for different purposes, but there's nothing particularly noteworthy to elaborate on.
The presale addresses of the Ethereum, Polygon, and BSC wallets are published in the whitepaper, but the Solana presale wallet address is missing. We counted over $400K in the project crypto wallets using blockchain explorers, but according to the project's announcements, they have raised $600K to date. We assume the difference is found in the unpublished Solana presale wallet. We didn't further check the discrepancy, even though this could potentially be a red flag.
Now we're getting to the most interesting part—the tap-to-earn game... drums, please... "Coming Soon". Okay, somewhat disappointing. The page says to expect an announcement soon on Twitter and the Telegram chat. It was edited a month ago. While the project raises $600K, and there is zero information on the flagship game, that's a yellow flag for us.
After reading through the project's whitepaper, we started thinking about the concept. Many tap-to-earn games are also a type of meme coin. These games often feature a cartoon character, and it very much resembles meme coins, if not a meme coin de facto. X-Empire has an Elon Musk cartoon character at the center of the game. Rocky Rabbit revolves around muscular rabbits conducting fights. X-Hamster is all about a businessman hamster running a cryptocurrency exchange. These are all kinds of meme coins with a tap-to-earn game. But they didn't have to raise funds from retail investors as anonymous developers. They could raise funds from VCs or professional investors; probably some of the project developers are professional blockchain gaming companies.
That got us thinking: Will the developers of the Dogen crypto project be able to deliver a tap-to-earn game at the high standards of the tap-to-earn games available today? Who knows? To be honest, probably not. Top blockchain gaming studios could—and none of them is probably behind Dogen.
Unfortunately, we are left with no information on the Dogen crypto team and also missing a KYC certificate to reassure us that the founding team has provided their details to a third party. While it's common in cryptocurrency presales and doesn't necessarily mean a crypto project won't launch or perhaps rug pull, when it comes to raising $600K, it's a major concern. Let's just say the team would have been better off exchanging two out of the three $DOGEN token audits for one KYC certificate. But the team is choosing to hide its identity, and that's a yellow flag for us.
There's some marketing using press releases and sponsored articles on big news or blogging websites—something that definitely attracts attention—but other than that, not much. We've visited the project's Telegram channel and also their Twitter account. In Telegram, we found some chatting and dialogue, but we can't say we've seen a strong community, at least not yet. On Twitter, we've seen the project trying to engage the crowd with some giveaways and interactive posts, but again, nothing special there.
What we didn’t appreciate was the bold, prominent mention of future listings on the website, with specific crypto exchanges, including their logos. Binance, Gate.io, and OKX are just a few of the names. This is not ethical and creates a misleading impression for potential cryptocurrency investors visiting the site.
Before considering any Dogen price prediction, it's important to remember that the project hasn’t officially launched yet. There's even a chance the project won’t launch at all. Cryptocurrency investors should be highly suspicious of any websites offering Dogen price predictions for such an early-stage presale project. Without a live market, any price speculation is unreliable. Always wait for the project to launch before making any assumptions about the price of the $DOGEN coin.
To buy $DOGEN coins, you can participate in the presale hosted on its self-managed launchpad, available on the Dogen crypto website. This provides early crypto investors the opportunity to purchase $DOGEN tokens. However, proceed with caution—buying crypto tokens during presales carries significant risks and could result in the total loss of your investment. Ensure you conduct thorough research before proceeding to the crypto launchpad.
We'll make it short. If you were our real-life friend, we'd tell you to stay away from the $DOGEN coin presale. While we can't say if the project is a scam, building a tap-to-earn game that will compete with the excellent ones that are out there today is no walk in the park.
A hidden team with no KYC certificate, that has only a shiny dog who likes shiny things, doesn't seem serious enough to pull this off. And this is only if their intentions are good in the first place. And let's face it, we're in crypto—a legit, qualified team wouldn't pretend they could pull this off without showing the necessary expertise.