From a joke to a meme and now to one of the most significant crypto projects, Dogecoin is such a unique cryptocurrency. The coin has grown over the years, buoyed with a vibrant community and a knack for fun. 

Dogecoin has had an active market performance throughout the years. It particularly became sensational in 2020 when a user claimed on Tiktok that investing $25 in the project would result in $10000 when the coin hits $1. 

The revelation led to a sudden surge in adoption, with the crypto's value doubling within two days. The coin has also been associated with other notable figures like Tesla CEO Elon Musk. The Dogecoin community even gave him a fictitious CEO role of the project. 

With the coin gaining ground, there is more to learn about it. Here is all that information. 

Dogecoin Origin 

As Bitcoin became more pronounced, many people started considering it as an alternative to fiat currency. It was first becoming a serious venture with the analytical financial trends on it. Dogecoin came about to bring a lighter touch to cryptos. 

Jackson Palmer and Billy Markus started the project. They were all about fun more than they were about money. They launched the coin on December 6th, 2013. Its logo is a popular meme of a Shibu Inu dog on the coin. 

The coin did not take long to garner a following. The internet went crazy about the new coin that seemed like a fresher perspective. It seemed to embody the internet's language of memes. Soon enough, it had an engaged community. 

The community has since been integral to the project. 

What is Dogecoin 

Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency that operates like any other crypto project. It is used for tipping internet users on Twitter and Reddit. Some merchants also accept it as a payment method. Dogecoin is usable when buying various products like household supplies and internet domains.

The project's leading role was to change the negative perception surrounding the cryptos. The sector was fast appearing as a preserve for the few elite. It was also becoming associated with greed. Palmer and Markus were looking to change this. The coin has been intentionally designed to remain low value, not to attract several investors. 

How does Dogecoin work 

Dogecoin works similar to Luckycoin, a fork of Litecoin. It runs on a blockchain that processes 30 transactions per second, with every transaction costing around 1USD cent. 

Dogecoin is always looking to stay unattractive to investors. For that, it finds a way to keep the value low and also the mining more difficult. Its developers work with Digibyte developers to implement a Digishield. It is a protocol that modifies the mining difficulty after every block. Thus, no large mining pool can take over the coin. 

Dogecoin is all about simplicity. It has a simple function and design. It also had no ICO and no-pre-mine.

Dogecoin mining 

Dogecoin runs on an auxiliary proof of work consensus. This allows the miners of other proof of work coins like Litecoin to mine DOGE without additional costs. The feature helps protect the network from attacks. 

The reward for mining the coin was between 0 to 1 million DOGE for the first 100billion coins. After which, the rewards are 10000 DOGE per mined block. The cap started in February 2018. 

Dogecoin has no supply cap, and a block is mined every minute. The lack of a cap was the intention to keep the coin's value low. The project uses Scrypt technology. 

Dogecoin was first meant for mining from any GPU or CPU. The mining difficulty, however, increased after the first day of release. 

At the moment, mining using a CPU is not viable as the machine can overheat. It also comes with low returns of less than 1 DOGE per day. The best way to mine Dogecoin is through a Dogecoin mining pool. 

The other option is to mine using the special ASIC mining tools. Even though the ASIC miners come in various shapes and sizes, look for one that runs Scrypt software. 

Still, there is Dogecoin CPUMiner software if you are looking to mine from a computer. You can also mine it from a GPU using the software.

Dogecoin community 

Dogecoin has one of the most vibrant communities in the crypto sector. The community is always looking to come together for various courses. One of the earliest shows of unity within the community was when some users lost their assets through hacking in December 2013. 

The Dogecoin community united to reimburse all the affected accounts. The community has been more integral to the coin even more than the founders. 

The community corporation has also seen them come together with Dogecoin Foundation. The foundation has taken up several philanthropic initiatives. Top of these was the sponsorship of the Jamaican bobsled team to the Sochi Winter Olympics. 

Dogecoin Controversy 

Even though the coin takes pride in fun, it has faced its fair share of challenges. One of such times was when one of the founders, Jackson Palmer, quit. He claimed that the coin had attracted a group of "toxic community."

The other issues were with the creation of the Moolah crypto exchange. One of the community members, Alex Green, convinced others to contribute to creating the Dogecoin exchange. By this time, he had created a name through generous donations. One of such was when he mistakenly donated $15000 instead of $1500 to the NASCAR fundraiser. 

It later emerged that Alex never built the exchange. He instead bought over $1.5million worth of Bitcoin. He was, however, later arraigned in court on several counts of rape and other crimes. These he was sentenced to 11 years in prison. 

Dogecoin roadmap 

Dogecoin has no definite roadmap as it has no whitepaper. Instead, it only makes a few revamps and improvements. One of the reasons for the lack of a guide is that the coin was never meant to be serious. It also does not look to become any lucrative. The only developments to the coin's network are on security and network maintenance. 

The only significant development that almost occurred within the Dogecoin system was to move it to the Ethereum network. This would have allowed the holders to swap it with other cryptos on the ERC-20 network. The community, however, realized Dogecoin's tipping model is not feasible on the Ethereum network.

Dogecoin price history 

Dogecoin has a wild price movement like the coin itself. It started with the values of around $0.0002 in 2013. It rose fast by around 10x to hit $0.002 by January 2014. This was due to the internet users' craze for taking up the coin. 

The coin then went down to $0.0001 in 2015, before rising again through the year. It hit the highs of almost $0.018 during the 2017 crypto boom. By then, it had a market cap of $2billion. 

Dogecoin also had massive gains in 2019 when Binance listed it on the exchange. Elon Musk also gave it good ratings hence attracting several users. It was the same period when the Tiktok challenge brought in more users. 

Dogecoin is currently trading at $0.009 with a market cap of $1.155b.  

Investing Dogecoin

With the positive prospects, Dogecoin is an ultimate investment. There are various ways to get hold of the coin. These include;

• Trading – several top exchanges like Bittrex and Gate.io have Dogecoin in their folds. You only need to open an account then buy, sell and hold the tokens as you wish. Trading allows you to earn from profits when the value goes up.

• Get paid in Dogecoin – several entities are beginning to embrace payments through cryptocurrencies. If you provide online services, consider asking if the job can pay through Dogecoin. 

• Join Dogecoin community – Dogecoin is known as one of the most passionate communities. It draws its strength from this entity. Join the community and gain all you need to know from the project. 

Dogecoin Security 

Dogecoin is not the best when it comes to security. This is likely due to the lack of regular updates on the network. It has since suffered various security breaches. 

One of the top security breaches was the Dogecoin wallet hack in 2014. The holders lost around 21 million Dogecoin, valued at around $12000 by then. The community, however, raised money to reimburse the affected users. 

Unlike the wallet, the blockchain is quite safe. It has never been hacked before. The only concern has been the possibility of one person controlling more than 50% of the system. This has also changed after the network merged the mining operations with Litecoin.          

Even with the concerns, the coin remains viable due to the vibrant community. It also relies on the assured safety of blockchain.  

Bottom Line 

The future of Dogecoin remains certain for now. The community behind it is so passionate to let it slip. The only concern is the lack of further developments. Still, keeping the values low has helped it maintain its goal. It is also easy to purchase and sell, which makes it highly liquid.