How to Buy Dogecoin UK – Beginner’s Guide

Dogecoin spiked to $0.15 (£0.13) when Tesla engineers moved into Twitter’s head office to ‘dig into the source code’ for billionaire SpaceX founder Elon Musk. That explosive pump was a move of over 300% from the 2022 lows.

A long-term proponent of crypto, Elon Musk has frequently tweeted about Dogecoin, going as far as to say it has potential as a currency. Many UK and worldwide investors are optimistic Dogecoin can now recover to its 2021 all-time high of $0.74, or around £0.64. In this guide we cover how to buy Dogecoin in the UK.

Where to Buy Dogecoin in the UK

Dogecoin is now a crypto asset with a multi-billion dollar valuation. And as a result, you can buy Dogecoin in the UK from a large selection of platforms. 

The best providers to invest in Dogecoin, however, are those reviewed in the sections below.

1. eToro – Overall Best Place to Buy Dogecoin UK in 2023

So, to get the ball rolling, eToro will require you to open an account. Next, you will be asked to deposit funds with a debit card, bank transfer, or an e-wallet. When your eToro account is funded, you can then invest in Dogecoin in the UK on a spread-only basis. This means that you pay the difference between the buy and sell price at the time of the trade.

Although you might be looking to focus on Dogecoin right now, eToro also offers an abundance of other digital currencies. This includes everything from EOS, Bitcoin, and AAVE to Litecoin, Cardano, and Ethereum. This subsequently gives you the opportunity to buy a wide range of different cryptocurrencies and thus – you can diversify your portfolio.

By choosing eToro as your go-to Dogecoin broker, you can also access copy trading tools. This means that you automatically copy the investments of a successful trader. Another passive investment product offered by eToro is the CryptoPortfolio. Through a single investment, this allows you to diversify across dozens of crypto assets.

Crypto assets are highly volatile and unregulated in most EU countries, Australia, and the UK. No consumer protection. Tax on profits may apply. Your capital is at risk. Don’t invest in crypto assets unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest.

2. Coinbase – User-Friendly Place to Buy Dogecoin UK – But High Fees

Coinbase is a US-based cryptocurrency exchange with over 70 million customers. Since expanding into the UK market, you can now use Coinbase to buy Dogecoin with ease. You will first need to set up a verified account, which requires some basic personal information and a copy of your passport or driver’s license. After that, you can buy Dogecoin in the UK with a Visa or MasterCard.

Your purchase will be processed instantly, but do note that Coinbase charges 3.99%. As such, if you buy £500 worth of Dogecoin here, you will pay a rather hefty fee of almost £20. The other payment option you have is to transfer funds from your UK bank account. Although this does not attract any deposit fees, you will still need to pay a trading commission of 1.49% when you buy Dogecoin. As such, both of these options are a lot more expensive than the previously discussed eToro.

If you decide to use Coinbase to buy Dogecoin, you will also have the opportunity to invest in more than 50+ other crypto assets. This includes everything from Ethereum Classic, Litecoin, and Shiba Inu to Bitcoin, Decentraland, and Cardano. The minimum investment required at Coinbase is just £2, which once again highlights why the exchange is popular with beginners. Coinbase is also great for security and trust, and you will also have access to a mobile app that connects to your main account.     

Cryptoassets are a highly volatile unregulated investment product. No UK or EU investor protection.

What is Dogecoin?

Launched in 2013, Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency and blockchain technology project. Initially, the project was created as a meme coin, taking inspiration from the Shiba Inu dog breed. This blasé approach to the development of Dogecoin led to the digital currency taking a backseat approach for many years, with the value of tokens remaining flat until early 2021.  

However, it was in 2021 that the price of Dogecoin began to spiral in an upward direction, not least because Tesla CEO Elon Musk gave the project fame by explaining that he was a token holder – more on this later. In terms of the technology itself, Dogecoin is now primarily marketed as a global payments network.

Proponents of this project will rightly argue that Dogecoin is far more suitable as a payments network than fellow blockchain Bitcoin. In a nutshell, this is because, in comparison to buying Bitcoin, Dogecoin transactions are faster, cheaper, and more scalable. For instance, while Bitcoin transactions take 10 minutes to confirm, it’s just 1 minute in the case of Dogecoin.

Is Dogecoin a Good Investment?

It is important that you assess whether or not Dogecoin is a good investment before you proceed with a purchase. As such, you could read our article on ‘is it too late to buy Dogecoin?’

You’ll probably know that Dogecoin is not the only popular meme coin out there. Did you know you can buy Shiba Inu with an eToro live trading account from your mobile device?

Your analysis should largely focus on whether this digital token is a good fit for your financial goals and risk tolerance, and what the future potentially holds for the project.

The sections below will assist you with your research process – where we discuss both the positives and drawbacks of this speculative crypto asset.

Price Action and Growth

We briefly mentioned earlier that the value of Dogecoin remained flat between 2013 and 2021 – before Elon Musk indirectly created global hype. As such, it’s best to analyze the price of Dogecoin since this period. 

At the start of 2021, Dogecoin was trading at around $0.005 per token. This means that with an investment of just £500, you would have been able to purchase 100,000 DOGE.

Cryptoassets are highly volatile and past performance isn’t an indicator of future success. Invest at your own risk.

Then, after going on a parabolic run, Dogecoin peaked at $0.74 per token in July 2021 (£0.53 at the time). This means that in seven months of trading activity, the value of Dogecoin increased by almost 15,000%.

In other words, an initial investment of £500 at the start of the year would have been worth over £73,000 at its peak.

Since then, the value of Dogecoin retraced considerably. For instance, the price of DOGE tokens opening 2022 at £0.12 each. From its peak, this represents a decline of 77%.

However, the token saw a huge surge of 300% in late October 2022, following Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, reaching $0.15, its biggest gain since the previous April. After a pullback, the October monthly candle closed up around 150%.

Cheap Entry Price

Although Dogecoin dropped by 77% since its all-time high just a few months earlier, and hasn’t yet fully recovered, this negative pricing action isn’t exclusive to this project.

On the contrary, the wider cryptocurrency markets collective have been sluggish since the final quarter of 2021. 

What this means from an investment perspective is that while the fundamentals have not changed, you have the opportunity to buy Dogecoin in the UK at a massively discounted price – compared to its peak of $0.74.

Another thing to note is that for as long as Dogecoin trades below its all-time high, you can purchase a large number of tokens with a small capital outlay. For instance, even at $0.74 per token, an investment of £500 would still get you over 675 Dogecoin.

Elon Musk

The hype that Elon Musk created in early 2021 when he first announced that he personally holds Dogecoin tokens was unprecedented. As noted earlier, this resulted in a pump that at its peak, saw Dogecoin increase by nearly 15,000% in just seven months. 

• The key point here is that Musk is one of the world’s most influential business leaders, so when he talks about Dogecoin – people listen.
• Add this to the fact that Musk is highly active on Twitter across his 73 million followers – so a single DOGE-related post can have a huge impact on its value.
• Elon Musk completing his buyout of Twitter in October 2022 could also be bullish in the long term for DOGE

With that being said, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) previously investigated whether Musk’s Dogecoin tweets broke US securities laws, insofar that his public profile has and does influence the markets.

Dogecoin vs Bitcoin

We also mentioned earlier that in comparison to Bitcoin, Dogecoin is potentially more suitable as a global payments network. 

This is because:

• Bitcoin transactions take 10 minutes to validate, while Dogecoin requires just 1 minute
• As such, Dogecoin is 10 times faster than its Bitcoin counterpart
• In terms of fees, a recent CoinDesk report noted that Dogecoin transactions average $0.65 per transfer – irrespective of the amount being sent. As of writing, Bitcoin is carrying an average transaction fee of just under $2 per transfer.
• Another aspect that sets Dogecoin and Bitcoin apart is with respect to scalability. While Bitcoin is able to handle just 7 transactions per second, Dogecoin is capable of 33.

As per the above, Dogecoin does perform better than Bitcoin in the three key areas of pricing, speed, and scalability. However, it is important to note that there are several other blockchain networks that perform considerably more efficiently than Dogecoin.

For example:

• XRP can handle 1,500 transactions per second and fees cost a tiny fraction of $0.01.
• You then have Solana, which is able to handle 65,000 transactions per second and again – at a small fraction of $0.01 per transfer.
• Cardano is looking to take things to the next level by building its blockchain to handle over 1 million transactions per second without incurring any fees at all.

As such, just because Dogecoin is a better performing blockchain than Bitcoin, this doesn’t make it suitable as the de-facto payments network of choice.

High Liquidity

Since Dogecoin become a multi-billion dollar crypto asset, this means that the digital currency is highly liquid.

• In simple terms, this means that the asset attracts vast amounts of trading volume, and thus – you will never have any issues entering or exiting the market. 
• For instance, if you were to buy Dogecoin in the UK via eToro your tokens would instantly be added to your account portfolio.
• Then, on a 24/7 basis, you could instantly cash out back to fiat money by placing a sell order.

This makes Dogecoin a highly desirable cryptocurrency in comparison to low-cap projects that struggle to attract liquidity.

Cryptoassets are highly volatile and past performance isn’t an indicator of future success. Invest at your own risk.

Dogecoin Price

The price of Dogecoin will increase and decrease as each second passes, with the direction of its value depending on market forces. This is no different from buying and selling shares via the London Stock Exchange.

In simple terms, when more and more people are looking to buy Dogecoin – which is what happens when a public figure like Elon Musk plugs the blockchain project, this will result in the price of the digital currency increasing.

Dogecoin price chart as of November 1st, 2022

The rate at which Dogecoin increases will depend on how much buying pressure there is in the market at any given time. However, the Dogecoin price will move in the opposite direction when there are more sellers in the market. This will happen when the wider cryptocurrency markets are down and investors are looking to offload their Dogecoin tokens to cover further losses.

If you’re looking for real-time data on the price of Dogecoin, the best website for this is CoinMarketCap. This is because the website will take the weighted Dogecoin price from all of the UK cryptocurrency exchanges that list the token.

Cryptoassets are highly volatile and past performance isn’t an indicator of future success. Invest at your own risk.

Dogecoin Price Prediction 

This guide has thus far explained that Dogecoin is only volatile but highly speculative. After all, if an asset can increase by almost 15,000% in just seven months because Elon Musk is a proponent, this highlights that the cryptocurrency markets are oftentimes irrational.

• With this in mind, being able to formulate a reliable Dogecoin price prediction is somewhat impossible.
• Sure, some online commentators will publish a variety of possible Dogecoin price predictions based on technical analysis.
• But this marketplace is more reliant on hype and speculation than tangible data.

And as such, rather than searching the internet for Dogecoin price predictions, your investment decisions should instead be based on in-depth independent research.

Cryptoassets are highly volatile and past performance isn’t an indicator of future success. Invest at your own risk.

Choosing a Dogecoin Wallet

Dogecoin, like all digital assets, is stored in a crypto wallet. Once you have a Dogecoin wallet to hand, this will also allow you to send and receive funds.

The best Dogecoin wallets in the market for beginners come in the form of a mobile app. All you need to do is download the app to your phone, choose a PIN, write down your backup passphrase, and transfer the DOGE tokens over.

When to Buy Dogecoin

Seasoned investors will strive to buy Dogecoin when the crypto asset is going through a market correction. This means that the price of Dogecoin has since dropped from its recent highs.

• However, trying to time the markets – let alone in the crypto space, is not an easy task.
• As we mentioned earlier, Dogecoin and all cryptocurrencies for that matter operate in an irrational market, whereby price action is largely driven by speculation and hype.
• And as such, it might be best to dollar-cost average your Dogecoin purchases rather than attempting to time the market correctly.

For those unaware, this means that you will invest regular amounts into Dogecoin on a consistent basis.

A simple example would see you invest £50 at the end of each month. In taking this strategy, you don’t need to try and time your entry into the market. Rather, every time you buy Dogecoin in the UK, your entry price will be reflective of the broader industry.

How to Buy Dogecoin UK – Tutorial

If you have researched the market and had time to think about whether or not this digital currency is right for your portfolio – we are now going to explain how to invest Dogecoin in the UK.

Step 1: Open an eToro Crypto Account 

First visit eToro.com and create an account. Clicking any of the on-screen sign up buttons, you’ll then see this form below.

Next, complete the registration form by entering your name, email address, mobile number, and any other details required by eToro.

Step 2: Upload ID

As part of the Know-Your-Customer (KYC) process, you will also need to upload some identification documents.

This includes:

• Passport or driver’s license
• Issued within the prior three months, a bank/tax statement or utility bill

With that said, if you are depositing less than €2,000 (about £1,600), you can still buy Dogecoin in the UK without uploading the above documents straightaway. This does need to be done before withdrawals are authorized, though.

Step 3: Deposit Funds

You can now make a deposit into your eToro account. eToro charges a conversion fee of 0.5% on all GBP deposits.

This will convert your deposit into USD and subsequently allow you to buy Dogecoin.

Step 4: Search for Dogecoin

With a funded account, you can now search for Dogecoin on the eToro website.

All you need to do is enter ‘DOGE’ into the search bar and click on trade when you see the crypto asset appear.

Step 5: Buy Dogecoin UK

Just like in the image below, an order box will now appear on your screen.

Enter the amount of money (in USD) that you wish to allocate to Dogecoin – starting from $10. Then, click on ‘Open Trade’ to confirm the investment. eToro will then add your DOGE tokens to your portfolio.

How to Sell Dogecoin

We mentioned earlier that Dogecoin is a multi-billion dollar crypto asset and as such – you can sell your tokens with ease. If you followed the above walkthrough and purchased Dogecoin via eToro, you can cash out your investment as well.

First, click on the ‘Portfolio’ button on the left side of the dashboard. Then, look for Dogecoin and click on the settings button located next to the market. Finally, click on the ‘Close’ button to cash out your tokens.

You will then see that eToro has updated your cash balance to reflect the sale. At this point, you are free to withdraw the cash or use the funds to invest in other assets.

Conclusion

Dogecoin is known for being volatile – capable of pumping 300% or dropping 50% within the space of a few weeks. Elon Musk acquiring Twitter may be bullish for Dogecoin in the long term, or that may have already been priced in by Dogecoin’s pump in October 2022.

Crypto assets are highly volatile and unregulated in most EU countries, Australia, and the UK. No consumer protection. Tax on profits may apply. Your capital is at risk. Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment and you should not expect to be protected if something goes wrong. Take two minutes to learn more.

FAQs on How to Buy Dogecoin UK