Dogecoin

About

Dogecoin is an alternative cryptocurrency (altcoin) that uses the iconic Shibu Inu dog from the Doge meme as a mascot. Similar to Bitcoin and its derivatives, Dogecoin can be mined and exchanged for goods and services among the participants, though it is programmed to level out at a higher threshold of up to 100 billion coins and prevent any use of special bitcoin-mining equipment like ASICs. In comparison, Bitcoin will cap out at 21 million coins and Litecoin will support up to 84 million coins in circulation.

Origin

On November 27th, 2013, marketing professional Jackson Palmer posted a tweet that he would be “investing in Dogecoin.”

Investing in Dogecoin, pretty sure it’s the next big thing. http://t.co/yHR4bNv6OD
— Jackson Palmer (@jacksonpalmer) November 28, 2013

In an interview with the tech news blog Motherboard,^[4] Markus revealed that he wished to create a cryptocurrency that can reach a broader demographic than Bitcoin, which had previously come under accusations of funding illegal online activities like the Silk Road drug marketplace. After Palmer reached out to Markus on Twitter, the pair launched the official Dogecoin website along with the new cryptocurrency on December 6th, 2013.

Spread

Following the launch of the official website,^[13] a slew of social media channels and referential webpages soon emerged for Dogecoin, including a Twitter^[10] account and a Facebook^[9] page, racking up more than 36,000 followers and 13,000 likes within the the first two months respectively. On December 8th, an entire subreddit community dedicated to the use of satirical cryptocurrency was launched at /r/dogecoin.^[8] .

Throughout the first weekend of December, Dogecoin was highlighted by a number of tech news sites and blogs, providing a further boost to the value of the satirical currency. By December 14th, an encyclopedic article describing the concept of “Dogecoin” had been submitted by Wikipedia^[15] editor CitationNeeded. On December 17th, the DogeCoin YouTube channel uploaded a video titled “You Can be a Dogecoin Millionaire!”, featuring a sketch about the iconic Doge Shibu Inu dog Kabuso becoming a millionaire (shown below).

On December 19th, Dogecoin increased from $0.00026 to $0.002 in value, becoming the 7th-largest altcoin. Three days later, the currency crashed to $0.0003 after being heavily mined.^[5]

2013 Christmas Dogewallet Heist

On December 25th, 2013, several members of Dogecoin forum^[16] began reporting that their funds were being transferred to an unknown account identified as “DQT9WcqmUyyccrxQvSrjcFCqRxt8eVBLx8.” Later that same day, the founders of the Dogecoin storage system Dogewallet, temporarily shut down the service and issued a statement^[17] confirming that a hacker had gained access to its file system and modified its pages to reroute the coin transfer to a static account, which may have resulted in losses up to $12,000 worth of the crypto-currency. In addition, the Dogewallet administrators announced that it will immediately begin reimbursing all users affected by the hack.

Growth in Transaction Volume

On January 14th, 2014, Redditor innominatargh pointed out that more Dogecoins were traded within one hour than there were total Dogecoins in circulation in a post submitted to the /r/dogecoin^[6] subreddit. That day, the Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch^[7] blog posted a chart illustrating how Dogecoin transactions had eclipsed Bitcoin during the previous month (shown below).

Jamaican Bobsled Team Fundraiser

On January 19th, 2014, an Indiegogo^[2] page was created by members of the Jamaican Bobsled Team to fund their trip to the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics. On the same day, a fundraiser was launched by the Dogecoin Foundation^[4] for the bobsled team, which gathered $35,000 in donations in the first 24 hours.^[11]