Dogecoin, a relatively unfamiliar name in cryptocurrency circles, recently skyrocketed to internet fame after billionaire Elon Musk showed his vocal support of the digital currency through Twitter.
In technical terms, Dogecoin is a form of cryptocurrency in an online crypto exchange that enables peer-to-peer transactions across a decentralized network system. It started out as a practical joke between its founder, Billy Markus, and the cultural sensation “doge” meme (a picture of a shibu ino dog alongside multicoloured text in comic sans font) that circulated around 2013 mainstream media.
The software engineer thought it give a few people a laugh by hopping on the then-popular cryptocurrency hype and combining it with an unlikely partner. The marriage between the two certainly started as a humorous way to past the time, but have amassed its own cult following over the years to come.
In 2015, 2 years after the birth of dogecoin, Billy Markus cashed in his chips after growing weary of the overzealous harassments from the cryptocurrency community’s sensationalized take on what was meant to be a harmless practical spin on two cultural references of that time: bitcoin and “doge”.
But unlike Bitcoin, there is no limit to the amount of Dogecoin and investment opportunities that can be created in the so-called mining of the coin. According to this Trezor promo code and review Bitcoin is still very much the original blockchain proof-of-concept, making its entire system nothing short of ground-breaking and original. It is still widely believed to this day how industry-changing the potential of Bitcoin can be for how money can be handled in the 21st century.
Like its monumental benefits, so is the undeniable ripple effect of viral social media posts. The sensationalism from a single tweet from the richest man in the world has managed to take the meme-inspired token 37% in 24 hours to a record high of $0.084945 at 10:20 a.m. EST. At 12:25 a.m., dogecoin was up 18% at a price of $0.08008.
The almost overnight success of Dogecoin can be likened to the late 2017s crypto craze, when bitcoin’s prices skyrocketed to a staggering $20,000 before plummeting to $3,000 in the following year.
The same formula followed: viral social media post by well-known influential figure, oversensationalism of cultural reference, until finally unintended compounded effect on the crypto industry. Many celebrities hopped on the bitcoin hype and looked for crypto signals, with some even going so far as endorsing its crowdfunding with less than controversial means.
Much like the Reddit-fueled stock fiasco ala WallStreetBets and Gamestop, Dogecoin’s success was similarly foreshadowed (and some believe, intended) with enthusiasm from another Reddit group called SatoshiStreetBets where they users diverge information on which cryptocurrencies are currently worthy of support.
Following Elon Musk’s tweet, he was backed up by the likes of world-known rapper Snoop Dogg and Kiss singer Gene Simmons who also enthusiastic vocal support for the growing cryptocurrency. Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr., more popularly known as Snoop Dogg, replied to Musk with a parody of one of his albums ‘Snoop Dogg’, but instead renamed it ‘Snoop Doge’ with the iconic shiba inu replacing the rapper’s face.
When asked to comment on the compound effect of his passion project’s recent brush with fame, the man behind the Dogecoin code, Billy Markus, only had this to say:
“If this is my contribution to the world, it’d be nice to offset all the burning of fossil fuel used to mine the currency.”
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