Dogecoin DOGE

The infamous Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency based on an internet Dog meme - focused around Shiba Inu dog - that has a huge online following and dedicated believers. Dogecoin was launched on December 6th 2013 as a joke by Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer but has now taken on a life of its own, helped by the support of billionaire, Elon Musk. Dogecoin is an example of money as meme, rather than utility.

Dogecoin only differs slightly from Bitcoin in design, mainly in its use of Scrypto technology, and the absence of a fixed supply. The network is still validated by a proof-of-work mechanism meaning that Doge can be mined.

I t can be mined solo or via a mining pool (a group of miners that aggregate their computing power to mine larger amounts of a coin).  10,000 new DOGE are generated every minute, which equates to 14 million added to the supply every day.

Dogecoin has been used as a tipping system on Reddit to reward the production of popular content as well as a wider payment system and is traded speculatively. Famously, Elon Musk has often tweeted about Dogecoin leading its price to fluctuate widely on response, and for a huge army of ill-informed promoters to claim - without any justification - that its price will continue to increase.

Ownership is highly centralised with one address accounting for 28% of supply and 40% by just five addresses.

Who is using Dogecoin?

Dogecoin has absolutely surged in popularity over the past year, in no short thanks to attention from Elon Musk. The coin has developed its meme status to one of the most popular in crypto. With the price being relatively low, and the prevalence of crypto unit bias, a lot of people see Dogecoin as a huge growth opportunity, though of course this is highly speculative.

Google Trends illustrates how Dogecoin has come to prominence in the last year. Unlike some other cryptocurrencies, Dogecoin has quite a highly concentrated interest in certain nations. Whilst there is some element of global appeal, the North American continent has the most interest by a considerable margin. 

This makes sense as most of the interest generated in Dogecoin is through American dominated conversations on sites such as Reddit and Twitter. The meme originated in the United States and it remains where most of the buzz comes from. 

What is the size of the Dogecoin network?

There are over 129 billion DOGE coins in circulation with no hard limit on what this number could one day grow to. Currently Dogecoin has a market cap of over $77 billion ranking it currently as #4 on coinmarketcap.com. 

Dogecoin has become one of the biggest networks in crypto and is growing all time. As the price continues to rise more and more miners are dedicating their commuting power to mine it and as the price is currently quite low, competition pales in comparison to networks such as Bitcoin or Bitcoin cash. 

As of 2021, the Dogecoin blockchain stands at just over 43gb, which whilst not small for a blockchain is dwarfed in comparison to Bitcoin’s 350gb. 

Despite the meme-focused status of Dogecoin, real world adoption has accelerated as the brand becomes so well known.

Musk's SpaceX accepts Dogecoinbas payment for sending a satellite to the moon, 

The Oakland Athletics MLB Team is accepting Dogecoin for specific game seats, while the Dallas Mavericks accept it for their NBA merchandise.

What is the size of its community?

When looking at the Twitter and Reddit numbers for Dogecoin it becomes obvious that this coin is more than just a meme, it has a big following of people who really believe in it. The official Twitter account has 1.1 million followers and the Reddit account has a crazy 1.7 million members. Dogecoin isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, well except maybe to the moon (*not investment advice).

Though Dogecoin is known as a spoof coin, the community behind it has focused on supporting ‘underdog’ causes such as enabling the Jamaican bobsleigh team to go to the Sochi Winter Olympics via a $130,000 donation of Dogecoin. 

How much Dogecoin is traded?

Dogecoin has a huge average daily trading volume of over $22 billion dollars with the coin now being offered by all 3 of the major crypto exchanges: Binance, Huobi, and Coinbase. The most popular trading pairs are unsurprisingly DOGE/USDT and DOGE/BTC. 

The coin received another boost at the beginning of June 2021 when Coinbase Pro listed it, providing an 18% increase within 24hrs.