Is Bit Origin the MicroStrategy of memes?

The race for altcoin treasuries takes a new turn. On July 17, 2025, it was reported that Nasdaq-traded company Bit Origin vows to spend $500 million to arrange a Dogecoin treasury. What makes Bit Origin confident in its move?

Bit Origin’s Dogecoin long bet

Bit Origin announced it had agreed with investors to sell $400 million worth of ordinary shares and $100 million worth of convertible debt. The company plans to become the largest DOGE treasury. Its share price will appreciate long-term by increasing the DOGE per share ratio. Bit Origin has already raised $15 million, with most of this money intended for purchasing DOGE.

One of the reasons Bit Origin sees potential in the memecoin is that DOGE is a favorite of Elon Musk’s, and fans speculate that the Tesla CEO will add it as a payment method in an upcoming X Money payment tool. 

Jinghani Jiang, a Bit Origin CEO, puts it this way:

“We hope Doge’s performance and community make it a natural fit for X Money, as Elon Musk advances his vision for X as a global super-app. In an age of broken institutions, Doge embodies a shared culture of optimism and resilience that transcends existing political and financial systems.”

However, X has not confirmed the coin as a payment method yet. This uncertainty casts a shadow on the potential of Bit Origin to take off.

In addition to the hope for the inclusion of the DOGE option in X Money, the Dogecoin price may be boosted by the emergence of DOGE-based exchange-traded funds. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has yet to make a decision on whether to approve Dogecoin ETFs. Bitwise, 21 Shares, and Grayscale are currently awaiting the decision as they filed for the launch of spot DOGE ETFs.

While Bit Origin has a good chance of becoming the most extensive DOGE treasury and the first public company to establish a DOGE treasury, it is not the first corporation to bet on memecoins. In May, Freight Technologies announced the creation of a $20 million Trump token treasury.

Bit Origin’s problematic background

Bit Origin is a U.S.-based company, formerly from Singapore. The company was focused on building the Bitcoin mining ecosystem; however, it has now transitioned into a Dogecoin treasury. Just like the most prominent Bitcoin treasury company, Strategy (previously known as MicroStrategy), Bit Origin wasn’t a crypto-focused company from day one. It underwent a transformation following the stagnation of its stock price in 2022. Before 2022, the company was an agricultural enterprise known as China Xiangtai Food Co., Ltd.

As of July 19, its stock (BOTG), which was previously traded above $120 in 2019, now costs a mere $0.70. The price has been falling since the very beginning, with several short-lived rallies in 2020 and 2021. Rebranding China Xiangtai Food Co., Ltd. to Bit Origin and a change of focus didn’t change the downward direction of the stock price. Only the recently announced Dogecoin treasury plans helped to push the price from 35 cents to above 70 cents. Given all these, the DOGE gamble may be the company’s last resort to revitalize its significance.

Special place of Dogecoin in the altcoin space

While Dogecoin was initially launched as a parody cryptocurrency and eventually abandoned by its creator, it managed to remain one of the most popular and recognizable cryptocurrencies, paving the way for various dog-themed memecoins. 

Some projects that have attempted to replicate Dogecoin’s appeal include large tokens such as Shiba Inu, BONK, and Floki. All of them are among the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. However, Dogecoin is still the most prominent memecoin. As of July 19, 2025, it occupies the 8th position with a market cap of over $36 billion.

As no team was working on further development of Dogecoin, it became a community-driven project. In the 2010s, Dogecoin was notably used for fundraising purposes. In the first year of its existence, the Dogecoin community donated their coins to the victims of a Dogewallet hack, which resulted in massive theft of coins. In 2014, Dogecoin was used to raise money for several sportspeople, enabling them to participate in the competition, and the goals were achieved.

Throughout the years, Dogecoin has been supported by notable figures such as Vitalik Buterin, Snoop Dogg, Gene Simmons, and Elon Musk. In 2021, the latter’s humorous tweets about DOGE resulted in the short-term growth of the DOGE token. The dream of Dogecoin reaching $1 price still didn’t materialize; however, the news of Bit Origin’s DOGE treasury pivot re-ignited the community’s anticipation for Dogecoin’s rally.

Jinghani Jiang emphasized that Bit Origin will be as community-driven as Dogecoin itself. In a newsletter, The Wolf of All Streets podcast host Scott Melker described Bit Origin’s move as a sign of the growing treasury bubble.