A Beginner’s Guide to Dogecoin

Cryptocurrencies have often found reflection in pop culture. Soulja Boy has rapped about Bitcoin earlier and of late we have seen Hasan Minhaj call Bitcoin ‘Beanie Babies For Tech Bros’. We could go on and on, but the point is clear: cryptocurrencies often make an appearance in pop culture references and they range from good to negative. However, what if we were to tell you one such satirical-cum-humorous attempt to mock the barrage of cryptocurrencies,
borrowed from pop favourite Doge memes,ended up becoming one of the notable crypto coins of our times? Indeed Dogecoin is an unlikely member of CoinMarketCap’s top 25 ( in terms of market cap) and it all started as a joke. If you care to dig beneath the surface, here’s a beginner’s guide to Dogecoin for you, an altcoin that proved itself to be more than just a joke.

History and Objective of Dogecoin

When crypto coins were being launched dime a dozen and quickly peaking to brief highs, Jackson Palmer and Bill Markus wanted to satirise the whole phenomenon. Their new Dogecoin was launched on the basic of the doge memes doing the round on the internet around that time and was even publicised using doge meme templates for guerilla marketing. In addition to this, the makers of this cryptocurrency had an unusual aim: they wanted to keep the price of their cryptocurrency LOW. With low-pricing, they hoped it would be easier to adapt this crypto coin to everyday needs and for micropayments such as small tips over Reddit threads or from YouTube channels.

What is Dogecoin?

Dogecoin is essentially an altcoin that is a fork of a fork of Bitcoin. If you have read our guide to Litecoin, you would know it is one of the first forks of Bitcoin’s open-source code. Now Litecoin has a fork of itself called the Luckycoin and this Luckycoin was forced to create the Dogecoin. Hence, Dogecoin borrows a lot of features from the widely popular Litecoin itself. However, its block time is not as high as that of Litecoin. Originally intended to be ASIC-resistant, Dogecoin was developed using the Scrypt Algorithm but is no longer ASIC-resistant because now ASIC miners exist for Scrypt.

According to the Dogecoin website:
“Dogecoin is an open source peer-to-peer digital currency, favored by Shiba Inus worldwide.”

Dogecoin: How it Works

To meet the objective of making Dogecoin easily accessible for everyone and incredibly easy to acquire, Dogecoin was developed to ensure its supply remains high. The Dogecoin prices are meant to remain under 1 cent per coin usually. While the high supply with no cap deters price rise, it keeps transaction values to a minimum and makes Dogecoin a great cryptocurrency to work with. The speed of transactions is definitely something to write home about and it adds to the ease factor of using this coin.

Dogecoin: The Road Ahead

Although Dogecoin prices have not exactly been the most impressive of the lot and the coin has had controversies such as exclusion from the Exodus wallet (owing to the slow development of the coin), it has managed to create a loyal community of users. The fact that community members are so helpful in guiding new owners of the coin add to its simple charm and easy popularity. Now, if the idea of easy-to-use and lightweight alternatives to Bitcoin excites you and interests you in making an investment, you must check out a list of best altcoins to invest in, in 2018 we compiled for you.