Memes are an everyday occurrence on the Internet, and crypto is no exception. It’s time to get to know the first meme cryptocurrency ever made, Dogecoin.
Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency created as a joke that symbolizes a Japanese dog called Shiba Inu after a meme called Doge. The main idea behind it was to mock the acceptance rate of cryptocurrencies in early 2014.
The first batch of the population that Dogecoin received was in early 2014, upon its creation. It got popularity from the early crypto communities that were excited and full of passion for the technology crypto was using, and of course, for the jokes Dogecoin brought with it.
The second wave of population and adoption came in 2021 when the meme coin trend took off, and more and more people started promoting it and getting into crypto with Dogecoin as their first coin. The most notable person who kept encouraging it was Elon Musk, who later went so far and wanted it to become an official currency on Mars.
It is also a cryptocurrency that was most present on social media, and it was frequently being talked about and its growth.
Dogecoin doesn’t have a primary purpose, but it is now accepted as a payment option in several companies like Tesla, AMC Theaters, GameStop, Dallas Mavericks, Twitch, etc.
At the time of writing (May 16th, 2022), Dogecoin’s price is $0.08. The current Market Cap ranking is #10, with a market cap of $11.6B.
Dogecoin had a massive last year when it reached its all-time high price of $0.68 in August. It started the year with a price of $0.005, making it one of the most significant one-year gains in the history of crypto. However, after hitting an all-time high, the price fell drastically, and with the 2022 market correction, it still hangs in the range between $0.1 and $0.2.
Dogecoin has been averaging a 255.5% growth rate since its creation.
Dogecoin did not have an initial token distribution like most of the tokens.
Its current circulating supply is 136.2B tokens, and 10K coins are created every minute.
Dogecoin is the most popular meme cryptocurrency, and many people heard about crypto through Dogecoin or want to be a part of the joke. With an infinite supply across the board, the demand is high.
The primary way people buy their Dogecoin is through centralized exchanges because they offer the ability to purchase them with credit\debit cards, which most people prefer.
Although significantly more complicated, the second way is through decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap. Decentralized exchanges usually require users to already have some cryptocurrencies in their wallets to buy other cryptos.
Finally, it can be purchased easily through a broker app such as our Veli App, where you can get your hands on some Dogecoin in just a few taps on the screen.
Dogecoin was created by two software engineers, Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer.
Dogecoin also has a board of advisors that consists of Billy Markus, Max Keller, Elon Musk, and Vitalik Buterin, one of the Ethereum co-founders. The board members meet every month to discuss issues related to Dogecoin.
Dogecoin does have a roadmap:
Dogecoin has attracted a vast community during its growth in 2021. They are present on every popular social media channel, and their subreddit counts over 2.3M members alone.
Dogecoin has not had any issues with law worth noting.
Because of its popularity, Dogecoin has some impressive network activity numbers:
Dogecoin’s main competitors are Shiba Inu and Dogelon Mars. This is why they are direct competitors:
Shiba Inu is also a meme coin that was created as a symbol for a Japanese dog race, Shiba Inu. It is slower than Dogecoin, with a smaller community size. Its community has dubbed it “the Dogecoin killer.”
Dogelon Mars is also a meme coin inspired by Elon Musk’s statement that Dogecoin will be a legal currency on Mars. It is also slower than Dogecoin and does not possess any utility.
Here are some additional numbers to illustrate this competition.
Dogecoin | Shiba Inu | Dogelon Mars | |
On what network is the coin hosted? | Dogechain | Ethereum | Ethereum |
Transactions per second | 33 | 15 | 15 |
Time needed to confirm a transaction | 13s | 6 min | 6 min |
Average transaction fee | 0.30$ | 15$ | 15.00$ |
Market cap | $17.33b | $11.29b | $499.37m |
Circulation supply | 100% | 99% | 55.00% |
Total number of wallet addresses created | 5m+ | 1.16m+ | 135.9k |
Total number of daily active users | 51.86k | 14.6k | 233 |
Launch date | 2013 | 2020 | 2021 |
Average growth rate | 256.00% | / | / |
As with any other asset class, there are risks involved when it comes to investing. Since there are many kinds of cryptocurrencies, risks can be grouped into two categories – general risks that apply when investing in cryptocurrencies and risks that only apply to specific assets.
We have prepared a guide that addresses general cryptocurrency investing risks and offers tips on how to mitigate them, while risks that only apply to specific assets are addressed directly in the coin guides such as this one.
Dogecoin is a meme cryptocurrency coin created because of an Internet meme of a Japanese Shiba Inu dog called Doge. It existed for many years before going on rapid growth in 2021 due to the influence of famous people like Elon Musk and the meme community.
It reached its all-time high price in 2021, and because of its growth, the Dogecoin Foundation has been restructured to give it a more real-life purpose besides a transfer of value.
Since it is a meme coin, it has a lot of competition because meme coins are being created all the time, so we can only wait and see if the new board of members will make it useful in the long run or will it succumb to many of the other meme coins.
