The foremost meme coin, Dogecoin (DOGE), turns 10 today, with the crypto token first being introduced on December 6, 2013. Ten years on, what was first created as a “joke” has gone on to become one of the largest cryptocurrencies with a large community to boot.
How Dogecoin Came To Be
Engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer created Dogecoin, and interestingly, the duo is said to have created the meme coin as a parody of Bitcoin. It was created at a time when cryptocurrencies were just garnering hype and was done as a way to satirize them. That would explain why the Japanese Shiba Inu dog was chosen as the meme coin’s logo.
Upon creation, Dogecoin began to gain some ground in the world of cryptocurrencies as it was seen as the fun and less serious crypto token. Many might argue that that remains DOGE’s standout feature to date. It is a token that has continued to thrive despite not necessarily having a roadmap or actual utility. Rather, it has simply relied on vibes and its light-hearted community.
Aside from being created as a parody of Bitcoin, Dogecoin and the foremost cryptocurrency also share a bond. Dogecoin happens to be a fork of Litecoin, which in turn is a hard fork of Bitcoin. The relationship between Dogecoin and Litecoin is also not pronounced, but the former is said to have merged-mined with the latter back in 2014.
Dogecoin’s community was one of its pillars from the get-go from the onset. They were partly responsible for building its popularity and increasing its utility at its early stages. In 2014, the community raised close to 27 million DOGE to send the Jamaican bobsled team to the Sochi Winter Olympics. They also raised 40 million DOGE in that same year for a community project in Kenya.
Meanwhile, the meme coin’s popularity on Reddit earned it one of its earliest use cases as it was (and is still) used for tipping users on the site.
Dogecoin’s Meteoric Rise
The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has undoubtedly been integral to DOGE’s rise to the top. The first time he publicly commented about the meme coin was in 2019 when he said, “Dogecoin might be my fav cryptocurrency. It’s pretty cool.”
Since then, Musk has gone on to make several cryptic comments about the meme coin which has in no small way contributed to its popularity. Beyond his fondness for Dogecoin, Musk is also reportedly invested in the meme coin’s development.
DOGE’s breakout year came in 2021 when the meme coin surged by over 26,000% to hit an all-time high of $0.7376. This meteoric rise could be partly attributed to the wider acceptance DOGE began to enjoy. For instance, NBA team Dallas Mavericks began accepting the meme coin as a payment option.
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Musk’s biggest support for Dogecoin also came that year when he appeared as the host of “Saturday Night Live,” where he discussed the meme coin several times. At one point, while explaining what Dogecoin was, he called it the “future of currency.”
All this while, Dogecoin made its way to the top, breaking into the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap. The meme coin currently leads the way among other meme coins and happens to be the second-largest PoW (proof-of-work) token by market cap (just behind Bitcoin).
At the time of writing, DOGE is trading at $0.10 (on its 10th birthday), up by over 15% in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.