Dogecoin is known as the people’s currency and may be one of the most popular cryptocurrencies by name.
Dogecoin is also well known to have gotten many people into cryptocurrency in the first place. It was most investors' first buy, and holds a special spot in many people’s hearts.
You may be wondering if Dogecoin is worth it.
We will find out what Dogecoin is, a little bit of history, and if it has any type of future. Alright, let’s hop in!
What is Dogecoin?
Dogecoin is a digital currency that is able to be sent to and received by the users over its network.
Dogecoin is one of the most popular cryptocurrencies of all time, not only by the amount of people that know about it, but also by market cap. It has a massive, extremely dedicated community. There’s also a picture of a dog, which makes it a 10/10 crypto just for that.
Dogecoin was created as a parody of
Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general, making fun of the speculations of cryptocurrencies. The code for Dogecoin was basically copied and pasted straight from a crypto called Litecoin with a few changes. It has the same basic concepts as Bitcoin and Litecoin.
In some ways it is better. For example, Dogecoin only takes one minute to confirm a block, but Bitcoin takes around 10 minutes and Litecoin takes 2 and a half minutes. Like the other two cryptocurrencies, Dogecoin uses a proof of work consensus method.
Since, Dogecoin was never really meant to get popular and was created to make fun of cryptocurrency, DOGE is considered a
memecoin, the first of its kind. Thousands of memecoins would spring to life because of DOGE.
Dogecoin’s meme is based on the Shiba Inu “doge” meme. Much wow, so doge, many crypto. It inspired tons of other dog-themed cryptocurrencies like Shiba Inu Coin and Baby Doge.
Dogecoin has outlandish rules like a massive amount of circulating coins, 10,000 new DOGE are mined every minute, and there being no max supply. That means 5 billion new coins are created per year. Because the supply is so high, the price is pretty low, meaning for just a few hundred dollars you could hold thousands of coins, a stark contrast to Bitcoin, which was a few thousand dollars each.
Right now, Dogecoin has a market cap of 9.2 billion dollars and a current price of $0.07 per DOGE.
A Quick History of Dogecoin
Dogecoin was created in 2013 as a joke, mostly making fun of the people who thought cryptocurrencies would be the next greatest thing. Remember, this was 2013, before hardly anyone knew what cryptocurrencies were. It was made by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer.
Even though Dogecoin was created as a meme with no real purpose, users on the internet began to use the cryptocurrency to tip other users whenever they posted something worthwhile. This was the first real use of Dogecoin, but it was mostly contained to reddit, Twitter, and Twitch. There was even a bot on reddit that allowed users to easily send DOGE as a tip for their comments.
Dogecoin has done some really cool things in its history.
One of the coolest things was sending the Jamaican Bobsled Team to the 2014 Sochi Olympics. The team qualified to go to the olympics, but could not afford the trip to participate. Just two months after its creation, Dogecoin was able to donate about $50,000 worth of DOGE to help get the team to Russia.
A few months later Dogecoin raised money to sponsor a NASCAR car. The car was decked out in Doge theme including the doge himself on the back. In order to sponsor the car, the Dogecoin community raised about $55,000. The car raced twice, and came in last during the second race. Later that year, the Dogecoin car was added to the video game, NASCAR ‘14.
In the 2017 bull run, Dogecoin reached $0.01, which was crazy at the time because it was worth $0.00026 at one point. It went even higher, hitting an all time high of $0.017 per DOGE with a market cap of almost 2 billion dollars. The Dogecoin took a few years of rest.
Everything changed in 2021 when Dogecoin went viral for a while. There were many people on the internet hyping up Dogecoin trying to get it to $1. Even Snoop Dogg and Elon Musk got into the game. The Dallas Mavericks allowed people to buy their merch with Dogecoin. At this point it seemed like everyone knew what Dogecoin was and it has hit a new all time high of about $0.08.
Dogecoin seemed to be exploding in 2021, and went so mainstream that it even got mentioned on Saturday Night Live by Elon Musk. Elon was the host that night and even the promotional posters had the doge meme on the front. When the show first started during the opening monologue, Elon mentioned Dogecoin and during this time, DOGE was about $0.72 each, with a market cap of almost $88 billion.
Towards the end of the show, Elon called Dogecoin a “hustle” and the price plummeted all the way down to around $0.47 in less than an hour. DOGE has never seen that all time high or market cap since that day.
During the 2022 crypto crash, the price of DOGE also crashed. During this time DOGE went all the way down to $0.05, but has not gone below a cent since it broke that price point in early 2021.
Does Dogecoin Have a Future?
As mentioned before, Dogecoin was used to tip user’s content online. Once a user has been tipped some DOGE, they can sell that for real money. Because of that Dogecoin has had real world value in its past.
Dogecoin evolved over the years, going from being used to tip users on the internet to being accepted as a payment method for many businesses. That means that you can buy real life goods with the Dogecoin cryptocurrency.
Dogecoin currently has over 1,300 different merchants accepting it as a form of payment. You already might know a few of these businesses. The big ones include AMC Theaters, GameStop, Twitch, Gucci, Newegg, and Tesla.
As for the future, it seems like Dogecoin is being accepted by more and more businesses every day. Including Elon Musk, who may accept Dogecoin as a form of payment for SpaceX merch.
Speaking again of Elon Musk, he currently may or may not be buying the social media giant, Twitter. He has hinted before that if he does go through with the purchase, he may add built-in tipping with Dogecoin. That would bring Dogecoin back to its former glory of the early days. This would surely increase its popularity since Twitter is one of the most popular social media platforms.
More popularity means higher demand, which likely means a higher price.
Is It Possible for Dogecoin to Reach a Dollar?
Dogecoin going to one dollar is this community's version of asking if
Shiba can reach a penny. Unlike Shiba, it is actually possible for DOGE to reach $1 each. Here’s how:
Currently, there are 132 billion DOGE in the circulating supply. To find the market cap that Dogecoin would need, we just have to multiply the amount of coins in the circulating supply by the price we want. So, some easy math tells us that for DOGE to reach $1 each, it would need a market cap of 132 billion dollars.
132 billion seems like a lot, but DOGE has come close to at least almost $100 billion before. At its all time high Dogecoin reached $88 billion dollars in market cap. If it can get another big push like that, you may see DOGE top $1.
Dogecoin has an unlimited supply, meaning that for it to stay at $1 its demand needs to keep up with the supply. Unfortunately that supply is huge.
Remember how Dogecoin can mine a block per minute? Well, whoever mines that block receives a reward of 10,000 DOGE! Yes, that means every minute 10,000 new Dogecoins enter the circulating supply. That means to remain at one dollar, DOGE would need to add an additional $14.4 million dollars of value per day. That’s about $5.23 billion per year!
If DOGE starts getting accepted by more businesses and it becomes more of an everyday currency, it can easily reach a dollar.
An interesting tidbit is that if Dogecoin
reached a trillion dollar market cap it would be worth around $7 per DOGE.
Summary
Dogecoin was originally created as a meme of cryptocurrencies. It can be sent to users across its network, meaning it is a form of digital currency. Its transactions are recorded on the blockchain, and it uses a proof of work consensus method.
Dogecoin has become popular due to its community. The community has raised money for a few different events, and Elon Musk is so big a fan of Dogecoin that he mentioned it on Saturday Night Live.
As its popularity grew so did its price making it one of the top cryptocurrencies by market cap. At one point it was top 5 by market cap, and currently sits at 11.
Dogecoin’s future depends on its demand from the community. Many businesses currently accept Dogecoin as a form of payment, and many more will in the future. It may also become a payment method for Twitter, depending on which way fate swings.
Dogecoin could possibly hit a dollar since it would need a market cap of 132 billion dollars in order to do so. If it hits another way of popularity in the future, it is possible that there could be enough demand to have it reach a dollar.
Now that you know all about Dogecoin, you can learn about another cryptocurrency called
Polkadot!
