Dogecoin and Elon Musk: what 12 events did to the DOGE price, from "One word: Doge" to D.O.G.E.

Why an event study?

Dogecoin was created in 2013 as a joke, and for years it traded far from the spotlight. That changed when Elon Musk started posting about it in late 2020. Since then, almost every large DOGE move has been linked – rightly or wrongly – to something Musk said or did.

Memories of those moments tend to focus on the jump. We wanted to measure the whole story: how big the first reaction was, how it compared with ordinary DOGE moves, and how much of it was still there a week, a month and three months later. This kind of analysis is called an event study, and it is a standard way to measure how markets react to news.

We used Binance's daily DOGE/USDT prices, which start in July 2019, and 12 events that are well documented in news coverage. When an event happened in the US evening, we dated it to the next UTC day, because that is when trading reacted. All changes are measured from the close before the event.

The first two days: a real and unusual jump

Across the 12 events, DOGE gained a median of +21% over the two days around the event. That is far outside normal behaviour: the median two-day move for DOGE since 2019 is slightly negative (−0.2%), and only about 2% of all two-day periods produced a gain of 21% or more. Bitcoin, over the same two days, moved a median of −0.4%. The reaction was specific to Dogecoin.

Two events stand out:

• "Dogue" (28 January 2021): a mock magazine cover came during the GameStop and WallStreetBets frenzy. DOGE rose 392% in a single day and 519% in two days.
• "Doge Barking at the Moon" (mid-April 2021): DOGE gained 201% over two days and more than tripled within a week, heading towards its May peak.

Apart from the SNL broadcast, the only event followed by a two-day loss was the November 2024 "D.O.G.E." department announcement (−4.6%). By then DOGE had already more than doubled in the week after the US election, and the name was widely expected.

Saturday Night Live: the top, not the start

The best-known event is Musk's appearance as host of Saturday Night Live on 8 May 2021, after he announced it on 28 April and called himself "The Dogefather".

From the announcement to the day before the show, DOGE rose from $0.27 to a closing high of $0.69 on 7 May – an all-time high that still stands. The broadcast itself was the turning point. DOGE fell 10% on the next UTC day, 29% over two days and 49% over the following month. Ninety days later it was 59% lower than before the show.

A week, a month, three months

The table shows how the early gains faded. A simple test is to compare the highest close in the week after each event with the price 30 days later. In nine of the 12 cases, DOGE was lower at 30 days than at its post-event peak; the median case kept about 80% of the peak value.

The longer view is harsher. The first four events, from December 2020 to February 2021, look spectacular at 90 days – DOGE rose by 1,000% or more after each of them – but that was the 2021 crypto mania doing the work: Bitcoin also gained 50% in the 30 days after the first two events.

From April 2021 onward, the picture changes. Of the eight later events, DOGE was lower 90 days later in six, with a median of −26%. Only the Musk-Twitter purchase in October 2022 (+12%) and "Barking at the Moon" (+63%, which still ended well below the SNL peak) were higher.

The effect is shrinking

Comparing early and late events shows a clear decline. The four events from December 2020 to February 2021 produced two-day gains of 21% to 519%. The four events in 2022–2024 produced two-day moves of +4.5%, +58.4%, +20.4% and −4.6%. The October 2022 Twitter purchase was the last really large reaction (+58% in two days, +85% at the peak), and even that faded to +12% after 90 days.

There are several reasons. DOGE has become a much bigger market, so the same buying pressure moves it less. Traders now expect Musk news and position before it. And the 2021 reactions happened in a market where almost every speculative asset was soaring.

What this means

1. Musk-related news has had a clear, measurable short-term effect on DOGE – far larger than normal daily noise.
2. That effect has rarely lasted. Most post-2021 events left DOGE lower three months later.
3. The biggest single event, Saturday Night Live, marked the all-time high rather than the start of a new rally.
4. The jumps have been getting smaller as the market has grown and learned.

This study covers 12 events chosen because they are well documented; Musk has posted about Dogecoin many more times, and some posts had no visible effect. For today's DOGE price levels, volatility ranges and indicators, see our live Dogecoin market data.