Today we are talking about the memecoin that’s worth over 7 Billion Dollars.
You can also watch the video given below or this thread I wrote on Twitter.
What is Dogecoin?
Dogecoin is a user-friendly decentralised cryptocurrency with very low transaction fees, faster transaction times, and an easy-to-use platform.
History of Dogecoin?
Before I get into history let’s talk about the origin of the word ‘Doge‘.
One of the early mentions was on this 2005 Homestar Runner’s puppet show (video)
Now, let’s talk about the history of Doge becoming a meme:
On Feb 23rd, 2010, Japanese kindergarten teacher Atsuko Sato shared photos of her dog ‘Kabosu‘ (Breed:- Shiba Inu) on her personal blog.
Then in Oct 2010, A photo of Kabosu was shared on Reddit with the title “LMBO LOOK @ THIS FUKKIN DOGE” (The picture has been deleted)
Sometime in late 2012, the word Doge reappeared on multiple platforms. Then it went viral.
People started sharing what their dogs are thinking in a single picture by adding comic sans font ❤️
It got so viral that on Nov 20, 2013, If you searched “Doge Meme” on Youtube the text on the page becomes coloured Comic Sans font.
Creation of Dogecoin
Around the end of 2013, Jackson Palmer a product manager at Adobe was interested in Cryptocurrency and Bitcoin.
Palmer read an article called “Doge Is An Actually Good Internet Meme. Wow”
That’s when he tweeted out funnily saying he’d love to invest in Dogecoin. He got very positive feedback and that’s when he said let’s do something about it.
- He bought the domain on 4th Dec 2013.
- Launched the website on 6th Dec 2013 – It had comic sans font with the doge meme on a coin 😂 (Archive)
On the other hand, Billy Markus a software developer at IBM wanted to create a coin but couldn’t.
He discovered the Dogecoin buzz and reached out to Palmer to get permission to build the software behind and create an actual Dogecoin 🚀
Here’s what Markus did…
Markus designed Dogecoin’s protocol based on existing cryptocurrencies, Luckycoin and Litecoin (9) which use scrypt technology in their proof-of-work algorithm.
Within a day they released the currency out in the world through this forum called BitcoinTalk.org
Quick Recap the founder’s journey:
Palmer who was into crypto and memes thought doge meme was funny and what if there was a cryptocurrency on it. He then bought the domain name and created a currency as a joke.
Billy came across the site, had a good laugh and thought if we are making it anyway why don’t we make it a good one.
This is where things get real 🚀
Ups & Downs
Two weeks later (on Dec 19th) the value of the coin jumped 300% (It’s believed that the jump was because china banning banks from buying bitcoin, so they had to find an alternative coin to invest on)
Three days later Dec 22nd, the first major crash. Dropping by 80%
On Dec 25th, the First major theft. Millions of coins were stolen during a hack on the platform Dogewallet.
All this happened in a single week. What happened next is just magic ❤️
Dogecoin Community:
The incidents spiked tweets about Dogecoin.
The website had over a million visits and then a Reddit community was created.
The Dogecoin community started an initiative named “SaveDogemas” to help donate coins (Remember this was around christmas)
One month later, enough money was donated to cover the hack and money was sent to people who lost the coins
Here are a few more good things the dogecoin community did:
Just a month after Dogecoin was created (Jan 2014), the community donated
- $30,000 to fund the Jamaican bobsled team’s trip to the Sochi Winter Olympic games.
- $11,000 worth of Dogecoin to build wells and provide drinking water in Kenya
- $55,000 of Dogecoin to sponsor NASCAR driver
The trading volume of Dogecoin crossed Bitcoin and all other cryptocurrencies combined. Though the Market Cap was much smaller than Bitcoin. By its first birthday, Dogecoin had a Market Cap of $20 Million and a Loyal Fanbase.
April 2015, Jackson Palmer announced “extended leave of absence” from the cryptocurrency community for multiple reasons (which I don’t want to get into)
During the Cryptocurrency bubble (2017 & early 2018) it peaked at $0.018/coin putting its market cap at 2 Billion dollars before doing down massively.
Summer of 2019, Dogecoin got a push.
- Binance listing the coin 🙌
- Elon Musk’s Tweet
July 2020, Dogecoin spiked again. A Tiktok trend aiming to get the coin’s price to $1
Jan 2021, Dogecoin went up over 800% in 24 hours (WallStreetBets, Elon Musk pushed things up)
Also, every time Elon musk talks about Dogecoin it goes up lol
Dogecoin marketed itself as a “fun” version of Bitcoin. The memecoin.
Dogecoin started as an easy way to tip people on Reddit and other social media platforms. If bitcoin is a 100 Dollar note then a Dogecoin is a cent (which you throw in a mug) but eventually, they get bigger.
Conclusion
Dogecoin was started as a joke but the idea behind the joke was to educate normal people to take crypto mainstream that hasn’t been done before.
In the early 2010s bitcoins was used by geeks, nerds and people who are into technology… the idea was to get more young people and diversify the crypto community.
Elon musk said in the Good Time Clubhouse Call, ” If a picture says a 1000 words, a meme says 10000 words”
At the time of writing this blog, Dogecoin’s market cap is 7 Billion dollars and rising.
Elon musk, Snoop Dogg, r/WSB and many more people have been promoting it.
Will it reach $1?
Unlikely but not impossible. There are only cryptocurrency that has reached a market cap of $100 Billion (Bitcoin & Ethereum) But the more important question is
Will it become the currency of our future?
Only time will tell.