Dogecoin - The meme coin

The meme currency?

Do you know what is a meme? Have you ever liked or shared any memes? The answer is simply yes. I bet each and everyone, who has the accessibility to internet must have liked a meme for at least once. Everyone like them. Meme has become incessant in this world. Someone has well said that "Who can control the meme, can control the world". Yes it is, one thing that started as a joke or as a meme is now valued at more than $45 billion. Can you count the number of zeroes in it? You've read the caption and have understood about whom we would be talking today, it's the meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin; before we proceed further I would like to tell you that the pronunciation is doje-coin not dog-coin or dosh-coin.

Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin or Ethereum, created as a joke by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer in 2013 to make fun of Bitcoin. It is made after the viral doge meme of Shiba Inu, and also features Shiba Inu's face as it's logo. Imo, Dogecoin is the highest mentioned altcoin in twitter in history and "dogecoin to the moon" is something that is common to everyone.

How does it work?

Dogecoin is also runs on blockchain technology like bitcoin. If you're wondering what is blockchain technology, please have a look on our previous article on it.

You can easily buy or sell dogecoin from a crypto-exchange like Binance or Huobi. There are quite a lot of crypto-exchanges out there and you can open an account on anyone of them very easily and buy DOGE through them; just google it and you'll get a vast list of crypto-exchanges available there. Some online brokers like Robinhood and Trade-station also allows you to buy and hold dogecoin. You can also hold dogecoin in your digital wallets or hardware wallets.

There is also an another way to get dogecoin and it is through mining. People called miners use computers to solve complex mathematical equations in order to process transactions and record them on the Dogecoin blockchain. In exchange for processing transactions and supporting the blockchain ledger, miners earn additional Dogecoin, which they can then hold or sell on the open market.

How can be used?

Dogecoin has been used primarily as a tipping system on Reddit and Twitter to reward the creation or sharing of quality content. You can get tipped Dogecoin by participating in a community that uses the digital currency, or you can get your Dogecoin from a Dogecoin faucet. A Dogecoin faucet is a website that will give you a small amount of Dogecoin for free as an introduction to the currency, so that you can begin interacting in Dogecoin communities. 

Investing in DOGE

Dogecoin is currently priced at $0.32 and now has a market capitalization of approximately $41 billion. Currently it has a total circulating supply of 129.84 billion and there isn't any cap to maximum supply. Dogecoin started the year 2021 at $o.oo5 and reached an all time high of $0.74 that is nearly 14,700% return in 5 months. However it corrected more than 50% just after making the ATH.

Before investing in Doge, people should understand that Doge is an inflationary coin, meaning it has an endless supply that keeps growing more and more rapidly as time goes. Every year, more than 4 Billion Dogecoins are mined and added to the overall supply. In the long term, this makes Doge unstable for long term investment, unlike deflationary coins like Bitcoin, which has a high demand and a limited supply. Most people even don't know how much centralized is dogecoin in comparison to other currencies like bitcoin or Ethereum. It is found from some analysis that one wallet controls about 25% of all the supplies, top 5 wallets control 40% of all the circulating supply and 100 wallets control 90% of all the token supplies up to this date. All the controls are concentrated in the hands of some few ones.

Dogecoin isn’t really a reliable store of wealth either, given that this typically requires a certain degree of long-term faith in the coin and the blockchain upon which it’s been built. Don't directly jump in it because you've heard someone became a millionaire in just few days by investing in it or because of a famous person said about it. It would be better if you just do your own research before entering into it.

But everything isn't out of favor for dogecoin. Transactions through dogecoins are very cheap in comparison to other competitors. Transactions in dogecoins are also fast as well. It has some unique features which increases it's usefulness. 

Why is it booming?

The DOGE run seems to be unstoppable. The main reason believed to be behind Dogecoin’s meteoric surge is celebrity supports. Celebrities like Elon Musk, Mark Cuban, Snoopdog and many other famous persons openly support dogecoin. It isn’t totally clear when or why dogecoin captured the heart of Elon Musk. An another key explanation for the price increase could be the rising value of other crypto types such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, which has propelled the value of Dogecoin.