Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency made by IBM software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer. They wanted to create a payment system that is instant, fun, and free from conventional banking fees.
It was created for a peer-to-peer digital currency that could reach a broader demographic than Bitcoin.
The Dog on Dogecoin is the face of the Shiba Inu dog from the "Doge" meme as its logo and namesake.
The Shiba Inu is a small-to-medium breed of hunting dog from Japan and the smallest of the six original and distinct spitz breeds of dog native to Japan.
- Dogecoin was launched on December 6, 2013, and within the first month, there were over a million visitors to Dogecoin.com.
- Dogecoin has been used to try to sell a house and has been used in the pornography and poker industries.
- Several cases of people using their employers' or universities' computers to mine Dogecoin have been discovered.
- In January 2021, Dogecoin went up over 800% in 24 hours as a result of attention from Reddit users, encouraged by Elon Musk and GameStop's short squeez.
- In February 2021, Dogecoin hit its all-time high price following Twitter encouragement from Elon Musk, Snoop Dogg, and Gene Simmons
- The current market capitalization of Dogecoin is US $5,382,875,000 as of January 28, 2021
