We already know about Ethereum and Bitcoin and several other altcoins. But there’s one unique coin among them that’s globally famous now. It’s called Dogecoin. It has the most surprising story behind it than any other altcoin. This post contains details about history Dogecoin, how Elon Musk found it and its rising valuation. As the Bitcoin is based on Blockchain that promises to revolutionize the monetary systems around the world.
This Dogecoin is based on a meme. Literally! This coin was made out of a dog meme. Someone took the Doge meme, this meme of the dog was quite famous at some point and made a coin out of it. Because cryptocurrency is so decentralized that any person can develop their own coin. They would need the primary coding knowledge to do that. But the thing is that this Dogecoin became so famous that people like Elon Musk started buying it and promoting it.
After the popularity of Bitcoin, several people brought up its disadvantages. Like, the long transaction time of Bitcoin, or that the whole process of Bitcoin consumes a lot of energy which is not good for the environment. That’s why some people considered making their own coins. These coins are known as Alt-Coins. i.e. Alternative Coins. Because they are the alternative to Bitcoin. And they try to counter the disadvantages of Bitcoin.
By some method or the other. Like Ethereum and Litecoin. But after altcoins had been developed, people realized that anyone can create their own cryptocurrency. So some people started creating their own coins for fun. There were no advantages in their coins as compared to Bitcoins. They simply changed the name and created a new coin.
ShitCoins
Some scammers made their own coins as well. And fooled people to invest in their coins to drive the value of the coin. After which the scammer would take back his investment and the people would suffer heavy losses while the scammer would walk away with a significant profit. This is known as a Pump and Dump scheme. There were also so many people who created their coins for fun. While some for scamming people others for absolutely no reason. These coins which were created for no reason are often known as Shitcoins.
Because they do not add any value to the world. They aren’t bringing about any improvement in the process. So they are Shitcoins.
How Was DogeCoin Created?
This Doge meme was at the peak of its popularity in 2013. Jackson Palmer, an Australian marketer and Billy Markus, a software developer at IBM developed this Dogecoin then. Palmer says that he thought up this idea as a joke to combine the two most popular trending topics on the internet. Cryptocurrency and the Doge meme. The code of Dogecoin is based on Litecoin.
Litecoin is an altcoin that does have a few advantages over Bitcoin. Like lesser processing time and lower transaction fees. But it is truly surprising that the market value of Dogecoin has already surpassed that of Litecoin. If you look at the largest cryptocurrencies of the world, Dogecoin coin has become almost the 5th or 6th largest cryptocurrency. After Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether etc more or less it remains trending among the top 10 trading cryptocurrencies. The biggest question here is how is it possible? How did a coin made as a meme gained such popularity? Why are people buying it?
The first reason is Reddit , which is the biggest platform. People on Reddit started using it as a joke initially. Whenever someone liked a post or commented on Reddit, people would award some Dogecoins to the OP as a tip. It was known as the DogeBot tip. Usually, this was a tip of 5 Dogecoins. And at the time the value of Dogecoin was 0.0002¢.
It was a very small amount. But using Dogecoin as a tip started gaining popularity on Reddit. And this expanded over the years. Dogecoins were used so much and exchanged so many times that their value started increasing rapidly.
Elon Musk And DogeCoin
“In September 2018, the CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk noticed it. Elon Musk met Jackson Palmer on the issue of Twitter scambots. The fake Twitter accounts that scam people using the guise of cryptocurrency.”
Elon Musk wanted to take them down because his name was being used to run such scams. So he asked for Jackson Palmer’s help on this. That was when Elon Musk came to know about Dogecoin. After 7 months he tweeted “Dogecoin might be my favourite cryptocurrency.” In March 2020 he tweeted “Dogs rock. They are the best coins.” Gradually, in the coming months and years he tweeted about Dogecoin several times which were indirectly or directly promoting Dogecoin. And because Elon Musk is so famous, perhaps the most renowned and liked billionaire in the world, every time he tweeted, it sent up the value of Dogecoin by 25% – 50%. Eventually, 2021 followed 2020.
Here are the examples from tons of Elon Musk tweets about Dogecoin
And now the value of Dogecoin has exceeded 50¢. At its peak, Dogecoin had almost touched the valuation of $80 billion. Though its price has fallen a bit in the last couple of weeks, the supporters of Dogecoin aim to drive its value up to $1. It means that the value of 1 Dogecoin would be equal to $1. Currently, it is around 50-60¢ more or less. It also keeps fluctuating, but the rise is incredible and it has been on an impeccable rise. So if Amazon or Tesla start accepting payments in any of the crypto currencies they are going to the moon for sure.
How to buy Dogecoin?
It’s the same as buying any other cryptocurrency. You would need to use Cryptocurrency Exchanges like Crypto, Gateo.io and Binance etc. You can find more information related to Dogecoin market on Subreddit Dogecoin Market.
DogeCoin For Causes
Talking about the real-life use of Dogecoin, the community of Dogecoin has donated to several charitable causes:
Their first donation was made to a Jamaican Bobsleigh team of $30,000 in Dogecoins so that the team could participate in the 2014 Russian Winter Olympics.
After this, for some water conservation projects in Kenya and for helping some special needs children, the community of Dogecoin donated money. You can also participate in the cause Dog4Water.
Who are the community members of Dogecoin?
Basically, there are a few Dogecoin subreddits where the users who buy and promote Dogecoins come together and make such donations. But overall, the Dogecoin has become a cultural trend now. It does not have a value of its own. It isn’t bringing in any significant technological advancement neither is it unique. Only because of its circumstances Dogecoin has become so popular now.
And this is needed to be understood by those people that think that if they invest in Dogecoin now, they would get 10x, 100x, 1000x returns. That Dogecoin is a good investment. You need to understand that cultural trends grow exponentially. And die down as well. If the Dogecoin keeps getting more attention it might become a highly profitable investment or otherwise. There is a very high possibility that this may happen.
You can buy Dogecoin if you want but do keep an eye on trends and other factors that affect cryptocurrencies. But higher the risk in investment, there are more chances of high returns as well. It is possible that after a few years, Dogecoin may be valued at $100 instead of a partly $1. But it is equally possible that its value may become 0 instead of the 0.50¢ now.
All your investment may vanish. Because predicting cultural trends on the internet is next to impossible. You’d basically be trying to predict how the world would think collectively. I believe that the same thing applies to Bitcoin as well. You should invest only that much in Bitcoin that you can afford to lose. If Bitcoin crashes to 0 tomorrow, you would not suffer much even after all your investment vanishes. And Dogecoin is even riskier than Bitcoin.
So this is even more valid for Dogecoin than it is for Bitcoin. At least Bitcoin has some value of its own. Because it presents a revolutionary technology. It presents an alternative monetary system. But it is not so with Dogecoin. But at the same time, also remember this, that only those things have any value in the society, in which people believe. If people think that a thing should have value, it does. You can see this with so many things. If people think that branded clothes have value, then their value exists and people buy them at exorbitant prices. The same thing applies to Dogecoin as well. If every one of us starts believing that Dogecoin does indeed have a value even if there really isn’t any, people would want to buy it which would drive up its value.
Absolutely any reason. If someone claims that Tesla would accept Dogecoin or Amazon would accept only Dogecoin etc and it has a high value the same reason as with clothes. If a cloth is marked by a brand it has a high value. For the same reason, someone may say that Dogecoin’s value should be higher ever more as the society starts believing that its value will grow. And if society doesn’t, its value will fall. But remember, genuine causes make the huge difference in adding value in society.
