Dogecoin Price Rises Despite Bearish MVRV Score Amid Tight Monetary Policy

Dogecoin’s Market-Value-to-Realised-Value (MVRV) Z-Score is currently at 0.28, a level typically associated with market capitulation rather than euphoria. Despite this, the price of Dogecoin has been steadily increasing, trading near $0.17 with a market capitalisation of approximately $26 billion. This discrepancy between the on-chain sentiment and the resilient spot bids was highlighted by Kevin, a pseudonymous analyst, who noted that Dogecoin’s MVRV Score remains at bear-market levels while the price continues to set higher highs and higher lows on the weekly chart.

Kevin also pointed out that previous cycle tops saw the Z-Score peak at approximately 11 in 2017 and 16 in 2021, whereas the current advance has only reached 3.5. He suggested that Dogecoin has not yet experienced a real bull run, attributing this delay to restrictive monetary policy. According to Kevin, this restrictive policy will eventually change, allowing altcoins to outperform.

The restrictive monetary policy remains the primary headwind for the entire altcoin complex. In the US, the Federal Reserve has maintained the fed-funds target rate at 4.25%–4.50% since January, following three cuts in 2024. Futures markets indicate that the first additional reduction is expected around September or later, after soft May inflation but a still-solid economy. The Fed is slowing, but not stopping, quantitative tightening, with the monthly Treasury run-off cap reduced to $5 billion from $25 billion starting April 1. Chair Jerome Powell has indicated that there is no sign yet that the Fed is ready to end quantitative tightening.

In Europe, the European Central Bank has started to lower borrowing costs, reducing the deposit rate to 2% on June 5. President Christine Lagarde emphasized that the Governing Council is in a good position to move gradually and will keep quantitative easing in the toolbox. Vice-President Luis de Guindos noted that the ECB has learned more about the side effects of money printing and that the bar for new quantitative easing is now higher.

The overall result is a global environment where policy rates are still above neutral, liquidity is being drained by the Fed, and European officials are determined not to repeat the 2015-21 experiment of perpetual bond-buying. This delay in easy money explains why altcoins have underperformed Bitcoin so far in the 2024-25 cycle.

MVRV compares the aggregate market value of all coins with the value at which they last moved on-chain. A Z-Score normalizes this ratio against its own multi-year mean and standard deviation. Historically, for Dogecoin, values above +9 have coincided with secular tops, values between –1 and +1 have appeared during long lateral “crypto winters,” and values below –1 have signalled deep capitulation and exceptional long-term entry points.

Today’s 0.28 Z-Score sits squarely inside the winter band, even though spot DOGE is up roughly 5x from its 2022 lows. The market cap has been rising since late 2023, while the Z-Score remains pinned near zero because the realised cap is climbing almost in lock-step as dormant supply changes hands at a higher cost basis. This means that the average on-chain holder is not yet sitting on the kind of paper profits that breed euphoria.

Futures markets now look for two quarter-point Fed cuts by December, taking policy to roughly 3.75%. Market-implied odds of a September move fluctuate with each inflation print; should shelter and services dis-inflation stall, traders will push expectations into 2026. However, neither the Fed nor the ECB is openly contemplating new asset purchases. Powell told reporters in March that the slower pace of quantitative tightening is designed to extend how far the central bank can run quantitative tightening before needing to stop, not to hint at a reversal. In Frankfurt, de Guindos stressed that any relaunch of quantitative easing would require either a financial-stability shock or a deep recession.

With quantitative tightening still active and rate-cut trajectories shallow, a powerful systemic tailwind for DOGE may not materialize until after the first Fed or ECB pause in balance-sheet contraction. If consensus is correct that quantitative tightening ends late-2025 or early-2026, any prospective quantitative easing would be a story for the next downturn, not this upswing.

Kevin’s interpretation hinges on potential energy. Because the Z-Score has not yet detached from its mean, Dogecoin can, in theory, absorb a fresh wave of retail and leverage-driven inflows without immediately flashing the kind of overheated signal that coaxed sellers in 2017 and 2021. Put differently, DOGE’s spring has not been compressed. Macro, however, remains the gating factor. Kevin reminds followers to “buy them low and sell them high. Never get attached to your Alts.” For now, low MVRV suggests structural downside is limited, but cyclicality implies explosive upside will likely coincide with a convincing turn in global liquidity – a turn that the Fed and the ECB, by their own admission, are not yet ready to deliver.