What is Dogecoin now and what it used to be

If its prices shoot up to the sky then it certainly must be worthy of one’s attention. Here we are, hastily typing ‘dogecoin what is it’ into the search tray, and the answer is anything but impressive:

Dogecoin is a clone of Luckycoin, a proof-of-work based cryptocurrency that was intended as a pun towards Bitcoin.

It was never meant to be the future of finance, or the cryptocurrency of the world. What is it then?

What is dogecoin: a joke crypto

Doge’s purpose was to deliberately make fun of Bitcoin, so no wonder you won’t find a techy whitepaper full of descriptions of Dogecoin network performance metrics.

There surely is a perspective to upgrade the network, especially after Elon Musk turned his attention to Dogecoin, but it is not the case right now.

What is Dogecoin: an overpriced asset

Eight years is a fairly short period of time to win the recognition on the scale of Doge. Of course, there’s a great deal of Elon Musk’s merit in that, but he wouldn’t give it a second look if it weren’t worthy of it.

Dogecoin is fun. This is what made it attractive and famous. Yet recently, Dogecoin can rather be compared to the apple of discord in the world of crypto. Musk has pumped it to the sky and made the unsuspecting Doge holders unfathomably rich; at the same time a part of the crypto community started to curse and blame Musk for turning the domain of crypto into his plaything and taking down the price of Bitcoin.

Maybe the true price of Dogecoin should be zero as some technical analysts claim, but for now the community keeps the price high enough.

When was dogecoin created?

Dogecoin appeared on December the 6th, 2013, four years after the release of Bitcoin. Its makers decided to mock the speculations around crypto that were rife at that time. Since then, the path to glory was not all that perfect for Doge.

When was dogecoin created: the timeline

The Dogecoin website got over a million visitors during the first 30 days after the release. A growing interest made the price jump more than threefold in the same month, although it still remained fractions of a cent.

Roughly a month after the launch, the first significant theft of Doge happened. Interestingly, the community had no problem refunding the lost funds back to the victims of the crime: it surely was a better solution than the infamous hardfork of the Ethereum blockchain.

Since then, Doge continued to actively trade (because of its low transaction prices) and kept a comparably low price (because of the inflationary model) although the overall price trend remained positive.

The price was easily manipulated by rather simple pump runs: in July 2020 a TikToker attempted to pump the price to $1 per coin with the help of their followers, which was indeed partially successful.

In 2019, Elon Musk supposed that Dogecoin might be his ‘fav cryptocurrency’ in response to the community voting for him as Doge CEO. April Fool’s Day was the actual date of “voting” to make the joke even more obvious. Apparently, Elon didn’t lack the sense of humor and joked back.

Doge holders have had a very hard laugh when the price skyrocketed thanks to the excessive attention of celebrities. There’s potentially more to it: imagine what happens when Musk literally takes a Doge coin to the Moon on a SpaceX rocket.

When was dogecoin created: the personalities

It is bitterly sad to see the two humble guys who created Dogecoin gain next to nothing from its recent rise.

Billy Markus, a former IBM software engineer who actually wrote code for Doge, stepped away from the development after, as he puts it, the community shifted from the one he was “comfortable with strongly”. Markus experienced increasing levels of pressure and online harassment, which became the primary reason he quit in 2015. His Dogecoin share turned out enough to buy a used Honda Civic, and he didn’t plan to hold any of the coins for the future.

The only Doge that he still has comes to him as tips.

Jackson Palmer, a former Adobe software engineer who came up with a logo idea and the website, left the Doge behind in 2015 too, and for the same reasons Markus did. Nope, he didn’t make a fortune.

What he regrets is not the loss of an opportunity to make a quick buck but, on the contrary, that money keeps pouring in the industry. There are more people that use blockchain to speculate rather than to use it daily while bankers take over the domain of crypto and re-centralize it.

Apparently both of the Doge creators wished for it to take a different turn of development. But they didn’t give up on crypto and continue to educate the community up until now.

What is dogecoin used for

Aside from making fun of bitcoin, Doge is a medium of exchange like any other digital coin. The properties of Dogecoin made it, among the other things, a convenient intermediary for people who wanted to encash their bitcoin.

What is dogecoin used for: fundraising

Back in the early days (2014) Doge won the fame of a charity crypto, acclaimed for the fundraising effort it did donating $50,000 for the Jamaican Bobsled Team that couldn’t afford the trip to the Olympics.

The community also raised $30,000 in a charity campaign aimed at funding a water well construction in Kenya. They keep supporting some of the projects to this day, particularly NASCAR sports.

What is dogecoin used for: profit and speculation

This part is what really troubled Palmer and Markus. If people have an incentive to hold their coins long-term, they are no more motivated to spend them on charity, tip fellow community members, or otherwise use the coin in so many ways. The price pump made Doge a very profitable (and risky) investment: have you heard a story of a redditor who became a millionaire after staking his life’s savings on it?

And, by the way, the NASCAR dogecar has crashed recently, which caused the coin to drop 2% overnight. Was it a bad sign of providence? Or it just proved how the market is influenced by superstitions?

What does dogecoin do

If you were looking to find out what does dogecoin do for the world, we have covered most of it, the good and the bad. The final judgment is up to you.

Or just feed up the curiosity a little and check out what is dogecoin at right now in your Trustee wallet.

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