(CNN) – Dogecoin is the most popular and strange cryptocurrency on the planet.
The total value of dogecoins in circulation is over $ 53 billion, which is not bad for a digital currency that started as a joke.
Dogecoin is the fifth most valuable cryptocurrency on the market, according to CoinMarketCap, after growing by over 6000% this year.
The price of a dogecoin doubled again on Friday, after Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted on Twitter for the eleventh time. The demand for dogecoin has grown so much this week that it has briefly broken the Robinhood cryptocurrency trading system.
What is dogecoin?
Like all cryptocurrencies, dogecoin is a digital currency that can be bought and sold as an investment and spent as money.
Although each crypto is unique, the dogecoin shares some similarities with its better-known colleagues (its code is based on the litecoin script, for example). But it has some key differences.
Unlike bitcoin, which has set the number of coins available on the market at 21 million, dogecoin has 129 billion coins in circulation and will continue to make new blocks of coins available every year. This is part of the reason why a dogecoin is currently valued at just under 40 cents per dollar, and a bitcoin is worth about $ 62,000.
Although cryptocurrencies are gaining acceptance as a currency for buying goods, dogecoin does not have much use in the real world. It has several niche markets, such as giving up online artists.
And its main differentiator – its active online community – is what makes this strange coin so much fun. The group, active on Reddit, raised money (in dogecoin, of course) for charitable causes, and in 2014 successfully funded a sponsorship for Nascar driver Josh Wise to advertise dogecoin in his car.
“Dogecoin is not so much an alternative deflationary numismatic tool as an inactive inflationary exploration of building community around a crypto-asset,” wrote Usman Chohan, an economist at the University of New South Wales School of Business, updated in February. digital currency.
How did it start?
Dogecoin was created as a joke on December 6, 2013 by several software engineers.
Billy Markus, an IBM programmer in Portland, Oregon, set out to differentiate his cryptocurrency from bitcoin, which was full of mystery thanks to its anonymous creator, because at the time it attracted a small group of miners. Markus wanted his crypt to be open to the masses, according to Chohan.
Markus sought help to make his strange dream come true and found Jackson Palmer, who worked for Adobe. Palmer bought the dogecoin.com domain, a nod to the “doge” meme that was all over the internet at the time.
The website nods to its joking origins at the top – its mascot Shiba Inu is the first image on the page, mimicking the meme he was inspired by, featuring the same dog surrounded by a ton of comic text. Sans in the wrong English.
On dogecoin.com, your mascot has a headline: “Dogecoin is a peer-to-peer open-source digital currency that is favored by Shiba Inus around the world.”
Why is it suddenly so popular?
Dogecoin is no longer a joke. Its popularity has grown – astronomically this year – in part due to the widespread adoption of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
But Elon Musk is the most notorious and important supporter of the dogecoin. One of his tweets to his 50 million followers may send a growing cryptocurrency. That’s what happened on Friday, when Musk posted on Twitter “Doge barking at the moon” and shared a photo of a painting by Spanish artist Joan Miró, entitled “Dog barking at the moon.”
Doge barking at the moon pic.twitter.com/QFB81D7zOL
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 15, 2021
Dogecoin also enjoyed a kind of cult status on Reddit, where a popular group – not unlike the WallStreetBets group behind the GameStop rally – decided earlier this year to push its value “on the moon”. As a result, Dogecoin has grown by over 600%.
Whether or not it is a smart investment remains a question. The more actively traded and accepted Bitcoin is subject to extreme volatility, so the dogecoin could collapse without warning. But his rise this year has been impressive.
The one who did not benefit from the growing currency is Markus, who sold all his dogecoin when it was made available in 2015. He used the money to buy a Honda Civic.