Dogecoin

With Ethereum hitting new records recently, cryptocurrency is being widely discussed on the internet. According to the Markets and Markets report, the global cryptocurrency market size is estimated to reach USD 2.2 billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 7.1% during 2021-2026. 

There are many cryptocurrencies gaining attention these days and Dogecoin is the quirkiest among them. Dogecoin numbers do not have an upper limit like Bitcoin, which has a limit of 21 million. It is a peer-to-peer, open-source cryptocurrency and its underlying technology is scraped off of Litecoin. The low cost and the unlimited supply of coins make it acceptable among the crypto networks.

Inspired from a Meme

IBM software engineers Billy Markus and Adobe software engineer Jackson Palmer decided to create Dogecoin back in 2013. However, it was anticipated to be just a joke as an inspiration from a Doge meme that stormed the internet in 2013. The meme featured a Shiba Inu dog with different monologues popping around it in thought bubbles. The phrases were as if the dog is communicating, like “much tired”, “such happy”, etc. 

The two software engineers decided to create a digital currency out of it, which was meant to de quirky, undesirable, and funny. Palmer bought the domain Dogecoin.com and Markus stumbled upon the website and reached out to Palmer. Markus was then keenly looking forward to programming his digital currency and Dogecoin gave him hope to make this a success. Soon both the engineers decided to partner and Dogecoin was successfully launched on December 6, 2013. Reddit became the initial source of support as the value of Dogecoin splashed to USD8 million according to reports. The idea got accepted by the Reddit community and soon started gaining attention from the outside world. After a few days of its launch, the currency jumped almost 300% in its value amidst China imposing a ban on Bitcoin deals. 

December 25 was a dark day in the history of Dogecoin as it had to deal with its first hack, in which a hacker entered into the DogeWallet and stole 11 million Doge.

Sudden Surge in Value

In 2014, Dogecoin’s trading volume overtook the other crypto volumes combined including Bitcoin and in 2015 Palmer announced an “extended leave of absence” from the world of cryptocurrency. Through 2018, Dogecoin rose to USD 2 billion market value. Unlike the beginning of the story, which started as a meme-inspired initiative, Dogecoin is not a joke anymore. According to data from Coindesk, the current market cap of Dogecoin is USD 66.76 billion. A CNBC report talks about Glauber Contessoto, a Redditor who declared that he became a Dogecoin millionaire. Glauber invested over USD180,000 in Dogecoin on February 5 and had staked all his possessions for this. The article says that experts still are skeptical about crypto and consider it as meme-trading and highly risky. Dogecoin’s recent price surge can be dedicated to the listings on Coinbase this week. Coinbase is the popular virtual currency exchange in the US. The same listing had also resulted in the skyrocketed market value of Bitcoin and Ethereum among other cryptos. 

Elon Musk and the Doge

Recently Dogecoin is said to have lost more than a third of its value since Elon Musk called it a hustle on a popular US comedy show. The price of doge had gone insanely up since the announcement of Musk’s anticipated appearance on “Saturday Night Live”, a TV show. Although Elon Musk has been tweeting about the currency in a rather serious tone on Twitter, this move was unexpected by both the crypto network and its traders. 

Nevertheless, Dogecoin had soared to more than 800% market value a month back, which made it the fourth-largest cryptocurrency in the world. On this Monday, Elon Musk made another tweet which says, “SpaceX launching satellite Doge-1 to the moon next year.” Yes, it seems that SpaceX is going to launch a Doge-1 Mission to the Moon in the first quarter of 2022 by accepting Dogecoin as the payment. If successful, this might be another milestone for the meme-inspired cryptocurrency.