Overview

Dogecoin (/ˈdoʊ(d)ʒkɔɪn/ DOHJ-koyn or DOHZH-koyn, Abbreviation: DOGE; sign: Ð) is a cryptocurrency created by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, who decided to create a payment system as a joke, making fun of the wild speculation in cryptocurrencies at the time. It is considered both the first "meme coin", and more specifically the first "dog coin". Despite its satirical nature, some consider it a legitimate investment prospect. Dogecoin features the face of Kabosu from the "doge" meme as its logo and namesake.

It was introduced on December 6, 2013, and quickly developed its own online community, reaching a peak market capitalization of over US$85 billion on May 5, 2021. As of 2021, it is the sleeve sponsor of Watford Football Club.

History

Originally formed as a joke, Dogecoin was created by IBM software engineer Billy Markus and Adobe software engineer Jackson Palmer. They wanted to create a peer-to-peer digital currency that could reach a broader demographic than Bitcoin. In addition, they wanted to distance it from the controversial history of other coins. Dogecoin was officially launched on December 6, 2013, and within the first 30 days, there were over 1 million visitors to Dogecoin.com.

Palmer is credited with making the idea a reality. At the time, he was a member of the Adobe marketing department in Sydney, Australia, while Markus was a senior software engineer at IBM in Portland, Oregon. Palmer had purchased the domain Dogecoin.com and added a splash screen, which featured the coin's logo and scattered Comic Sans text. Markus reached out to Palmer after seeing the site, and started efforts to develop the currency. Markus designed Dogecoin's protocol based on existing cryptocurrencies Luckycoin and Litecoin, which use scrypt technology in their proof-of-work algorithm.

The use of scrypt means that miners cannot use SHA-256 bitcoin mining equipment, and instead must use dedicated field-programmable gate array and application-specific integrated circuit devices for mining which are known to be more complex to produce.

On December 19, 2013, Dogecoin jumped nearly 300% in value in 72 hours, rising from $0.00026 to $0.00095, with a volume of billions of Dogecoins traded per day. This growth occurred during a time when Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies were reeling from China's decision to forbid Chinese banks from investing in the Bitcoin economy. Three days later, Dogecoin experienced its first major crash when its price dropped by 80% due to this event and to large mining pools exploiting the small amount of computing power required at the time to mine Dogecoin.

2021 boom

In January 2021, Dogecoin went up over 800% in 24 hours, reaching $0.07, as a result of attention from Reddit users, partially encouraged by Elon Musk and the GameStop short squeeze. In February 2021, Dogecoin hit a new high price of $0.08 following Twitter encouragement from Musk, Snoop Dogg and Gene Simmons. In March 2021, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban announced his NBA team would allow purchasing tickets and products with Dogecoin; within two days, Cuban had declared his franchise had become the top Dogecoin merchant, having carried out 20,000 transactions.

In April 2021, Dogecoin and other cryptocurrencies surged, stimulated in part by the direct listing for cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase on April 14, although that platform did not provide trading of Dogecoin. Dogecoin first reached $0.10 on April 14, before hitting a new high of $0.45 on April 16 (up 400% that week), with a volume of nearly $70 billion traded in the preceding 24 hours. At the time^([update]), Dogecoin's market capitalization approached $50 billion, making it the fifth-highest-valued cryptocurrency; its value had increased more than 7,000% per year to-date.

Interest in Dogecoin contributed to an outage in electronic trading platform Robinhood's cryptocurrency system on April 15, caused by "unprecedented demand", and prompted concerns from experts of a nearing speculative bubble in the cryptocurrency market.

On May 4, 2021, the value of Dogecoin first surpassed the symbolic hurdle of $0.50.

Use and exchanges

Dogecoin is an altcoin with a large userbase, and is traded against both fiat currencies and other cryptocurrencies on several reputable cryptocurrency exchanges and retail investment platforms.

Trading physical, tangible items in exchange for Dogecoin takes place on online communities such as Reddit and Twitter, where users in such circles frequently share cryptocurrency-related information.

Cases of people using their employers'^([which?]) or universities' computers to mine Dogecoin have been discovered including a Harvard community member and a student at London's Imperial College.

Online tipping

One major mainstream commercial application of the cryptocurrency has been Internet-based tipping systems, in which social media users tip other users for providing interesting or noteworthy content.