22 years after the birth of the first cryptocurrency in history, the crypto ecosystem has seen the amount of alternative cryptocurrencies to bitcoin expand like wildfire. So much so that, to date, they exist in the digital currency market more than 8,000 cryptocurrencies.
As you can imagine, each crypto was created for a specific use and has its own history… but some have a very special history and purpose…
That’s why today I want to surprise you and talk to you about a very, but very peculiar crypto… so peculiar that it was created for fun and satire… Today I’ll tell you what is DOGECOIN!
What is Dogecoin?
Dogecoin is an altcoin, an alternative currency to bitcoin, created by a joke that went viral in 2013, whenBilly Markus, an American programmer who worked as an engineer at IBM, launched a satire on bitcoin and invented the token of “dogecoin”, with the intent to make fun of the “crypto fever”.
Dogecoin’s (not so joking) history
In December 2013, when a Bitcoin was worth $1,083.14, Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer thought that cryptocurrencies were taken too seriously, that they had to be fun and not just related to money. So on December 6, 2013, they decided to create their own currency (DOGE) whose logo is one of the most popular internet memes: a Shiba Inu dog and the way it is written and pronounced is taken from a puppet show on the Internet.
Sound familiar to you? I’m sure you know what I’m talking about 😉
No one, nor its creator, would have thought that it would take seriously a cryptocurrency that had a Japanese dog meme as its logo, but, to everyone’s surprise, that crypto ended up reaching multimillion-dollar figures.
Unexpectedly, its currency began to expand through forums on the Internet and 15 days after launch its value multiplied by 300.
How does Dogecoin work?
Dogecoin develops from the open code of Litecoin and is based on a bifurcation of Litecoin (LTC) called Luckycoin.
Like Bitcoin, Dogecoin uses a blockchain in which blocks are validated by master nodes via Proof-of-Work (PoW).
Therefore, Dogecoin bases its technology on the Bitcoin Blockchain and structures its platform on the open code of Litecoin, improving the ability to generate blocks (these are generated in just 60 seconds).
The two algorithms that Dogecoin uses are Scrypt and SHA-256, allowing any computer to mine Dogecoins.
Dogecoin VS Litecoin
Dogecoin (DOGE) was created as a cryptocurrency closer to people and as an alternative to bitcoin, although it became an asset analogous to the Litecoin currency. However, the two have some differences. Let’s see what they are.
- Market Cap – Litecoin has a larger market capitalization than Dogecoin. At the time we write, the market cap for Litecoin is about$10,763 million, while that of Dogecoin is $1,202 million.
- Distribution – Litecoin has a limit of 84 million LTC and the amount of new litecoins per block is reduced to about half every 4 years (every 840,000 blocks), but Dogecoin allows users unlimited access, this means that you can extract unlimited amounts of Doges.
- Transaction speed – Dogecoin has a faster transaction speed than Litecoin. A DOGE block is generated within 1 minute, which is 250% faster than Litecoin, but takes 2.5 minutes. Full confirmation takes up to 6 minutes, while for Litecoin requires 15 minutes and 60 minutes Bitcoin.
Among the advantages that make Dogecoin a cryptocurrency with a promising future we find the following:
- Dogecoin has a huge support from the Internet community;
- Its mining process is much more accessible compared to that of Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies,
- Has no coin supply limits
- Dogecoin actively participates in charity projects.
Dogecoin VS Bitcoin
If Dogecoin has differences with his cryptocurrency ‘homologous’, it certainly has features that also differ from Bitcoin. Let’s see what are the main differences between Dogecoin and Bitcoin.
- Dogecoin transactions are much faster that bitcoin ones. As mentioned earlier, Dogecoin has a transaction speed of 1 minute, while Bitcoin needs 10 minutes to validate a transaction.
- One of the most relevant features is its low fees This makes it one of the most profitable cryptos. In fact, Dogecoin maintains an average of 40,000 transactions per day, surpassed only by Bitcoin.
- Unlike Bitcoin, the mining of Dogecoin does not need a great power. This allows any computer to function as a node to mine the Doges, while bitcoin needs Asics computers for its mining.
- Another very important feature of Dogecoin is that it is considered the second safest currency, according to Reddit users.
Price of Dogecoin
The price of Dogecoin is not among the highest … By the time this post is written its value is 0.007737 . Its market capitalisation is € 991,469,246 €, with a volume of € 196,962,343.
In fact, having no supply limits, it is completely normal that Dogecoin does not have significant price fluctuations, as happens for bitcoins or other currencies that have limited supplies.
However, there are about 128 billion Dogecoin in circulation right now. This makes it perfectly useful for small transactions. That’s why this cryptocurrency is increasingly being used to make donations.
DOGECOIN MINING
As we have already anticipated, Dogecoin is based, like bitcoin, on Proof-of-Work algorithm for its mining.
To create a new currency (process called in technical jargon: ‘mining’), computers that form network nodes must validate transactions by solving mathematical puzzles in exchange for a reward. In the case of Dogecoin, the reward for the validation of each block is 10,000 DOGE.
Thanks to the absence of the maximum supply limit of units and thetransaction confirmation speed ( blocks are solved in a record time of 60 seconds), wo that Dogecoin is considered by miners a very interesting choice for the mining process.
In addition, as we have seen, the mining of Dogecoin does not require very powerful equipment to extract it. This makes mining practically accessible to everyone.
DOGECOIN WALLETS
There are 4 types of wallet that we recommend to keep your Dogecoin and offered by the Dogecoin official website. Let’s see what are:
- Software Wallets: if you want to use a Software Wallet on your computer, Dogecoin offers 2 types of programs to download, available for Windows, OS X, Linux and Android operating systems.
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- Dogecoin Core: It’s a wallet that contains the entire Dogecoin blockchain and turns your computer into a Dogecoin node. Its great disadvantage is that it is very heavy.
- MultiDoge: It is much lighter as a program but, unlike Dogecoin Core, this does not turn the computer into a team of miners.
- Online wallets: this wallet offered by Dogechain webpage allows you to use the Dogecoin blockchain without storing anything on your computer.
- Hardware wallets: are USB-type hardware devices. One of the most used for its high level of security it offers is the Nano Ledger.
- Paper Wallet: are printable wallets and are a safe way to store your Dogecoins. You can create your Dogecoin wallet on the web page of Walletgenerator.
Where To Buy Dogecoin
You can get your DOGE tokens in one of the Exchanges offering this type of cryptocurrency. Searching on the internet you will surely find many websites specialized in the sale of Dogecoin.
How to say Dogecoin?
We are already at the end and I would like to conclude this post with a curiosity…Do you know how to say DOGECOIN?
Well, if you don’t know here you have the answer 😉
DOGECOIN, ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Finally, I leave you some additional resources if you want to delve into the most fun currency of the crypto universe.
See you soon!
