In brief
- DogeOS, built by the team behind the MyDoge wallet, opened a public testnet on 30 September for EVM smart contracts that use DOGE to pay fees.
- Only test coins move on the network, and no mainnet date has been set.
- Dogecoin itself cannot yet check DogeOS proofs; a Dogecoin Core upgrade the team proposed in July 2025 is still a proposal.
DogeOS has opened a public testnet that lets developers run Ethereum-style smart contracts on a new layer built on top of Dogecoin. The project, from the team behind the MyDoge wallet, announced the launch in a press release on 30 September, pitching it as a way to give DOGE uses beyond payments.
The release calls the testnet a place for builders “to develop and test their products ahead of the mainnet launch”. It gives no date for that launch.
What is live, and what is not
The testnet is a trial network. Users get free test DOGE from a faucet or move Dogecoin testnet coins over a bridge, and no real funds are involved. The bridge guide calls it “a very early implementation” and warns that deposits and withdrawals can take up to four hours.
Under the hood, DogeOS describes itself in its documentation as an application-layer rollup that runs an EVM-compatible zkVM. In plain terms, contracts, wallets and developer tools written for Ethereum should work on it, and the zkVM produces cryptographic proofs that transactions were executed correctly. The same page says the next step is “decentralizing each component of the stack”, so parts of the system are still run by the team.
Fees are paid in DOGE. According to the fee documentation, each transaction pays an execution fee calculated as on Ethereum plus a “data and finality” fee. That second charge covers posting transaction data to Ethereum for data availability and keeping the Dogecoin bridge up to date. So the design leans on Ethereum as well as Dogecoin, a detail the launch release does not mention.
Why Dogecoin cannot verify the proofs yet
Dogecoin’s base chain was built for simple transfers and has no way to check zero-knowledge proofs. In July 2025 the team submitted a Dogecoin Core proposal for a new opcode, OP_CHECKZKP, that would let the network verify such proofs directly. The proposal has not been adopted. Until it is, Dogecoin cannot secure DogeOS the way Ethereum secures zk-rollups such as the Loopring protocol, where the base chain checks every proof itself.
The launch release names apps in progress: Barkswap (a liquidity engine), Superposition Finance (lending), Derps (perpetual futures), Split Markets (options), the USDoge stablecoin, a prediction market aggregator from Snag, launchpads from Anoncoin and Starbase, and games and consumer products from Doge Escape, PlaysOut and DogeFundMe. It adds that availability depends on each team’s own schedule.
Dogecoin Foundation director Timothy Stebbing backed the approach in the release. “L1 ledger purity must stay intact while we introduce utility one layer above,” he said.
The approach borrows from Ethereum, where layer-2 networks such as Arbitrum run apps off the main chain and settle back to it. The next things to watch are a mainnet date and whether Dogecoin’s developers take up the OP_CHECKZKP proposal.
