Dogecoin becomes the second PoW cryptocurrency

Meme-inspired token Dogecoin (DOGE) became the second largest Proof-of-Work (PoW) coin after Ethereum’s Proof-of-Stake (PoS) transition, which took place last week.

Bitcoin’s market cap is $378.2 billion, so BTC is still significantly ahead of Dogecoin. The total market cap of DOGE has reached $7.9 billion, and the market cap of Ethereum Classic (ETC), which is the third largest PoW crypto, is $4.66 billion.

Opinions in the crypto community were divided. Some users say that they would never have thought that DOGE could become the second largest PoW cryptocurrency. However, others expressed the opinion that people will not take the crypto industry seriously with a memecoin so close to the top spot.

Many companies also reacted to the Merge. For example, Binance introduced zero-fee trading for the ETH/BUSD spot trading pair, and the developers at Opera Software added Metamask and other popular crypto wallets to the web3-focused Opera Crypto Browser.

Dogecoin developers are also working on a feature that will allow to send DOGE tokens to the Ethereum network and back.

Ethereum’s transition to PoS may increase the pressure on PoW-powered crypto networks, since this protocol consumes significantly more electricity. Lachlan Feeney, the founder and CEO of Australian-based company Labrys, said that there may also be pressure on Bitcoin.

Earlier, US lawmakers have already announced the possible introduction of tough measures against Bitcoin mining because it is not eco-friendly. And after the Ethereum Merge, a group of American environmentalists launched a new promotional campaign, the purpose of which is Bitcoin’s transition from PoW to a more energy-efficient PoS protocol.