DogeOS Opens Testnet, Tries to Teach the Old Dog Some Ethereum-Style New Tricks 🐕

DogeOS opened the public testnet for its Dogecoin application layer on Wednesday, per its press release, inviting developers to trial apps on the network before real funds are involved. The project is led by the team behind the MyDoge wallet and runs as a separate layer atop Dogecoin rather than altering the base chain. According to its documentation, DogeOS is an "Application Layer rollup network on Dogecoin" built on a zkVM, software that generates cryptographic proofs to verify transactions, and is EVM-compatible so Ethereum-based smart contracts, wallets and tools can be deployed on it. Fees on the testnet are paid in $DOGE, the native coin of the Dogecoin network, with a faucet distributing 42.069 test DOGE per day.

The release lists several teams already building on the network, including Superposition Finance, a lending protocol where users borrow against deposited crypto, Derps, a perpetual exchange for bets on prices with no expiry, USDoge, a CDP stablecoin minted against locked collateral, and Snag, a prediction market aggregator. PlaysOut, a mini-game publisher, is also on board, with approximately 15 Doge-themed casual games planned by the end of 2025 and a first title expected in August, playable through the MyDoge wallet and the PlaysOut mobile app. Dogecoin will see a slew of hypercasual mini-games released throughout the year via the DogeOS application layer, using the $DOGE network for in-game reward systems.

DogeOS founder and CEO Jordan Jefferson framed the launch as a shift in the asset's role, stating, "Today marks the beginning of Dogecoin's evolution from asset to ecosystem." Timothy Stebbing, director of the Dogecoin Foundation, added in a statement, "L1 ledger purity must stay intact while we introduce utility one layer above, and that is what DogeOS represents to me," referring to the base Dogecoin blockchain. The caution reflects the pace of change on the network, as Dogecoin has no formal on-chain governance; the DogeOS team submitted a proposal in July 2025 to bring zero-knowledge proofs to the base layer.

Dogecoin was created in 2013 by Jackson Palmer and Billy Markus as a joke and has since grown into a multi-billion dollar network. $DOGE was trading at $0.09447, up 0.06% over 24 hours, at the time of the price-analysis report.