The Financial Journey of Meme Coins: The Birth and Controversy of the DOGE ETF

In September 2025, an ETF product named DOJE was listed on the New York Stock Exchange, which is an exchange-traded fund based on the famous meme coin DOGE. Eight years ago, it was just a joke among programmers, but now it has entered Wall Street as an ETF, managing hundreds of millions of dollars in assets. This marks a deep integration of internet meme culture with the traditional financial system, also sparking many controversies and reflections.

Regulatory Arbitrage: The Compliance Path of Meme Coins

The listing of DOJE is not a coincidence, but rather a carefully designed regulatory arbitrage experiment. It adopts the framework of the Investment Company Act of 1940, holding 25% of DOGE and derivatives through a subsidiary in the Cayman Islands, while the remaining assets are allocated to compliant instruments such as U.S. Treasury bonds, cleverly circumventing strict regulatory scrutiny of spot crypto ETFs. This structural innovation allowed it to gain approval within 75 days, making it the first “no real-use asset” ETF in the U.S.

This reflects a fundamental shift in regulatory attitudes. Under the leadership of the new SEC chairman, the regulatory agency's stance on crypto assets has shifted from “containment” to “reconciliation.” Simplifying the listing standards has opened the floodgates for crypto ETFs, with nearly a hundred crypto ETFs awaiting approval as of September 2025. The essence of this policy shift is to incorporate crypto assets into the traditional financial regulatory framework, exchanging compliance for market access.

However, the financialized packaging also comes with costs. The 1.5% management fee for DOJE is much higher than that of Bitcoin ETFs, and this premium is the “entry fee” for meme assets to obtain compliance identity. Its tracking mechanism may lead to significant deviations between the ETF price and the spot price of DOGE, and investors may be betting on just the “shadow of DOGE” rather than the asset itself.

Cultural Conflict: The Contradiction between Meme Spirit and Financial Logic

The birth of the DOGE ETF exposes profound contradictions in the financialization process of meme assets. At the market functionality level, the ETF should lower the investment threshold, but it may amplify the speculative nature of DOGE. DOGE lacks the decentralized financial infrastructure of Bitcoin, and its price relies more on community sentiment and celebrity effects. Analysts have pointed out sharply: “This normalizes collectibles; DOGE is like Beanie Babies or baseball cards. The ETF should serve the capital market, not collectibles.”

The contradictions on a cultural level are more pronounced. The core culture of the DOGE community is the mocking spirit of “anti-financial elites,” with tipping culture and charitable donations forming a unique value identity. However, the launch of the ETF has completely restructured this ecosystem - as large institutions become the main holders, the community logic of “holding is believing” is forced to give way to the financial logic of “net worth fluctuations equal returns.” DOGE has transformed from “the game coin of internet users” to “a retirement allocation asset,” and this identity shift has sparked intense debate within the community.

The contradiction in regulatory philosophy hides risks. The reason for ETF approval is “to protect investors,” but the product design may instead obscure risks. Investors cannot participate in the tipping culture of DOGE, nor can they perceive the true value flow of the blockchain network. A more concealed risk lies in the tax structure - cross-border transaction costs and derivative roll-over fees may erode 10%-15% of actual returns during a bull market, and this “implicit loss” is cloaked by the guise of compliance.

Power Struggle: The Tug of War Between Wall Street and the Crypto Community

Behind the DOGE ETF is a silent power transfer. Wall Street institutions are urgently in need of new growth engines, and the large retail base of DOGE constitutes a market demand that cannot be ignored. This product strategy is essentially about using financial tools to harvest the traffic dividends of the meme economy.

The SEC's policy shift has distinct political economy characteristics. Cryptocurrency regulation has become a bargaining chip in political games, as regulators transition from “risk preventers” to “market promoters,” and the DOGE ETF has become a tool to test voter sentiment and capital response.

The resistance of the crypto community shows a fragmented characteristic. Early developers sarcastically said: “We created a joke against the system, and now the system has packaged it into financial products,” but this voice was soon drowned out by market enthusiasm. The ETF issuer changed the Shiba Inu logo from a cartoon style to a “financial blue” color scheme, and this visual symbol's domestication is precisely a micro footnote to the transfer of power.

Conclusion: A Transformation of Meme Culture or Financial Innovation?

The story of the DOGE ETF is essentially a typical example of internet subculture encountering the financial system. When community slogans turn into “price exposure” in SEC filings, the decentralized core of meme assets is being reshaped by the process of compliance and institutionalization. This domestication may bring short-term prosperity, but in the long run, can DOGE, which has lost its playful spirit and community autonomy, still be called a “meme coin”?

What is even more thought-provoking is that this domestication model is forming a template. Following DOGE, other meme coin ETFs are also in preparation, which means that the meme economy is being mass-converted into financial products. Wall Street uses the “scalpel” of ETFs to clip and reorganize the wild genes of internet culture, ultimately producing “financial genetically modified products” that align with capital logic. When memes are no longer spontaneous cultural expressions but become quantifiable and tradable financial assets, what we lose may be not only a form of entertainment but also the last bastion of the decentralized spirit of the internet.

In this game of domestication and resistance, there are no absolute winners. The moment DOGE donned the cloak of an ETF marked both the ascendance of internet memes to the mainstream stage and the announcement of the end of its innocent era. While the financial market reaps new growth points, it also has to swallow the bitter fruit of speculative culture. Perhaps, as a certain cryptocurrency analyst said: “When Wall Street learns to speak meme language, all that is left is business.”