From a mere meme coin, Dogecoin rose to prominence and proved that it should no longer be taken as a joke. It is now one of the top 10 crypto assets with a market capitalization worth billions and an ever-growing fanbase. Learn all about the Dogecoin basics starting from its history, to its blockchain technology and uses by reading here at Casino Days India.
The history of the meme coin, Dogecoin
Dogecoin was founded by two software engineers Jackson Palmer and Billy Markus as a joke back in December 2013. At that time, the iconic Doge meme was famous on the internet. It features a photo of a Shiba Inu dog surrounded with phrases purposely written in broken English typed in Comic Sans font.
Palmer joked about combining two of the internet’s most popular topics: cryptocurrency and Doge meme, thus inventing Dogecoin. He bought the domain Dogecoin.com and uploaded the photoshopped photo of Shibe on a coin. Markus, on the other hand, partnered with Palmer and began developing Dogecoin using Bitcoin’s open-source code.
The role of social media in the success of Dogecoin
With the help of social media, especially Reddit, Dogecoin rose to popularity. In the Dogecoin subreddit, users started sending Dogecoins to each other as a token or tip which led to the expansion of its user base.
Since Dogecoin wasn’t created with a specific purpose in mind, it was listed as a meme coin and people didn’t take it seriously until Elon Musk stepped onto the scene. When the Tesla and SpaceX CEO tweeted on Twitter that he can literally put a Dogecoin on the moon and called it ‘people’s crypto’, other celebrities get in on the act too.
For instance, Mark Cuban, who owned the Dallas Mavericks announced that they would be accepting Dogecoin as payment while rapper Snoop Dogg and Kiss’ Gene Simmons showed their support for the coin by mentioning it on their tweets.
On TikTok, there have been viral videos of Dogecoin enthusiasts encouraging people to buy the coin since it was only worth so little and can potentially rise in price soon.
Dogecoin and its blockchain
As per CoinMarketCap, the current price of Dogecoin as of writing is at $0.27 with a market cap of $35.9 billion. Its current all-time high price sits at $0.7376 and was recorded last May 08, 2021.
There is no maximum supply of Dogecoin but currently, its circulating supply is at 132 billion DOGE which will continue to increase in time with every newly made block. Each mined block rewards 10,000 DOGE.
Dogecoin is a highly volatile asset that allows day-traders who frequently enter and exit the market to take advantage and profit from its extreme swings.
How Dogecoin’s blockchain work
Dogecoin runs on a blockchain similar to Luckycoin which is a fork of Litecoin. Here, holders carry an identical copy of the Dogecoin blockchain which is regularly updated when new transactions are being made using the cryptocurrency. Like Litecoin, Dogecoin uses Scrypt for its blockchain. Scrypt has lower hash rates and uses less energy compared to Bitcoin’s SHA-256 mining algorithm.
Miners use computers to solve mathematical equations to verify and process transactions and add them to the blockchain. In exchange for the work they do to process the transactions, they earn Dogecoin which they can hold or sell on the market.
Compared to Bitcoin, it is quicker to mint Dogecoin since the equations are easier to solve, making it more efficient for processing payments. While it takes 10 minutes for a transaction to be verified and processed in Bitcoin, it will only take 1 minute in Dogecoin.
What can you do with your Dogecoins?
Take a look at what you can do when you have Dogecoins below:
Fundraising activities
The Dogecoin community and foundation have urged people to donate to charity and other noble projects. For instance, on the Christmas of 2013, multiple Dogecoin wallets were hacked which led to a loss worth 21 million Dogecoins. But the meme coin’s community worked together to refund the affected users by starting the initiative called ‘SaveDogemas’ where they donated coins to the victims.
Another fundraising activity the Dogecoin community did was back in January 2014 when they organized a campaign to collect $50,000 for the Jamaican Bobsled Team, which had qualified for the Sochi Winter Olympics but could not afford to attend.
Also, the community began collecting donations to dig a well in the Tana river basin in Kenya in cooperation with Charity: Water. The campaign was a success, receiving donations from over 4,000 people, including a 14,000,000 DOGE donation from an anonymous donor.
Payment
Dogecoin can be used for payments but it has limited niche markets and doesn’t have much mainstream use. Still, the coin can be bought and sold like an investment and spent like money. Some of the stores accepting Dogecoins as a form of payment are:
- SuchList: An online shopping platform
- AllGamer: A web hosting service for gaming
- Burger Bear: A burger joint in London
- Doge Door: A store dedicated to DOGE merchandise
- Nodex: Creates websites for recruiters and recruitment agencies to provide a fast hiring process for their candidates and clients
- Veloleo: A travel agency that arranges tours in Milan and Parma.
Why Dogecoin is dubbed as the ‘People’s Crypto’
Dogecoin’s active online community is what makes it the people’s crypto. Plus, they start many initiatives that contribute to the betterment not just of the network but also its members. But the most vital message of the projects is best summed up by a popular dogecoin Reddit rallying cry, which happens to be an acronym for DOGE: ‘Do Only Good Everyday’.
Dogecoin was not formed to make any person or business rich. In fact, it was only created as a form of a joke which led to becoming a force for good in the world, making it the ‘people’s crypto’. For more articles like this, check out the blog section of Casino Days.