Ross Nicoll described the stress involved with steering the memecoin forward was "overwhelming" — and that he needed to take time to focus on himself.
One of Dogecoin's best-known developers has announced that he is taking a step back from the project.
Ross Nicoll described the stress involved with steering the memecoin forward was "overwhelming" — and that he needed to take time to focus on himself. He added:
"There is a further complication that my employer for my day job is moving into the blockchain space, leading to a risk of conflict of interest if I remain as a director."
Nicoll said he is handing over as much of his workload as possible to the Dogecoin Foundation, and that he will remain as an advisor for now to help facilitate a smooth transition.
He also revealed that 2021 had been especially challenging for those involved in the project — not least because a number of parties began "registering trademarks for Dogecoin" despite having no affiliation with the foundation.
In a blog post, Nicoll said that he has confidence that fellow developers will be able to "steer Dogecoin into the next phase, in a way that I do not have the mindset for," adding:
"The foundation is operating in an extremely challenging environment, where every step of the way simple processes are significantly more complex than they should be, but it is moving forward. Please show them your support. The alternative is returning to a situation where source contributors are exposed to legal risk with no entity to shield them, and I do not see that ending well."
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DOGE Continues to Slide
At the time of writing, DOGE was trading at $0.1368 — 81.42% below the all-time high of $0.7376 set in May 2021 at the height of the trading frenzy surrounding the memecoin.
The altcoin's value has been eroding at a glacial pace for some months — although it remains well above the price of $0.05 that was seen at this point last year.
Occasional tweets from Elon Musk, and a decision to accept DOGE as a payment method for merchandise on Tesla's website, appear to have done little to change the coin's fortunes.
Some analysts, such as Bloomberg Intelligence's Mike McGlone, have warned that Dogecoin's blistering performance last year was a clear sign of excess and froth in the market.
He has previously dismissed memecoins such as DOGE and SHIBA INU as "speculation machines." As well as predicting that both coins will never return to their all-time highs, he claimed any strength in their performance could be regarded as a warning sign that a correction in the wider crypto markets was due.
