What is Dogecoin?

Dogecoin (DOGE) is an open source cryptocurrency based on the same general principles as Bitcoin. Dogecoin was introduced on December 8, 2013. It is characterized by high transaction speed and low commission. The average time to create a Dogecoin block is 1 minute (for Bitcoin, it's about 9 minutes). It is considered the first "meme cryptocurrency". Despite its satirical nature, Dogecoin has rapidly developed an online community and is currently being actively implemented in the field of online payments. Dogecoin is known as a "fun and friendly online currency", because of its "comic" origin. Software engineers from Portland Billy Marcus and Jackson Palmer launched a satirical cryptocurrency to ridicule Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies, the usefulness for practical application of which is often exaggerated. They wanted to create a cryptocurrency that would be closer to people, as well as distance themselves from the history of Bitcoin, due to the use of Bitcoin as a means of payment in the Darknet

Dogecoin is a new step in the public adoption of cryptocurrencies

The appearance of Dogecoin has given the world of the crypto industry completely new colors and opened up completely new horizons. The creation of a coin free from the academic seriousness of Bitcoin, but at the same time preserving all its advantages, allowed literally every person on the planet to become an active user of cryptocurrency. Indeed: whenever we sent Bitcoin, we were upset because of the amount of commission we had to pay for our transaction, and even with the adoption of SegWit and Taproot, the fee is still quite impressive, and using the Lightning Network, which allows making micropayments, requires at least a trusted channel and some knowledge about this technology.
On the contrary, Dogecoin is extremely clear and simple: everyone will be able to explain the principle of use to their own grandmother in 10 minutes, help her with installing a wallet on a smartphone and immediately congratulate her by sending the first 1000 DOGE to her address!
Just as tens of thousands of years ago, a dog became the first friend and defender of a human, so today Dogecoin has become the first truly friendly cryptocurrency that faithfully protects the financial freedom and independence of millions of users around the world.
But the main thing is that Dogecoin has united the greatest community of active, creative people inspired by the ideas of the triumph of goodness, reason and progress, contributing to the development of science and art, economic prosperity and peace consolidation.

The Dogecoin emission is not limited. Is it bad?

Most altcoins, as they have been developed so far, are deflationary. This means that there is a strict limit on the number of coins that will ever exist. Bitcoin, for example, is designed in such a way that there will be no more bitcoins after 2140. Other variants (Litecoin) have similar settings. However, one of the disadvantages of deflation is that it essentially encourages accumulation, as the perceived real value of a currency increases over time. Accordingly, academic researchers have shown that 64 percent of all bitcoins have never been spent.

As Jackson Palmer, Dogecoin creator, wrote :

"Based on everyone's feedback, we decided to keep the Dogecoin code base as it was originally released and not make changes. The purpose of the currency is to maintain about 100 billion coins in circulation — thus, after 100 billion Dogecoins are created, the reward will continue at the level of 10 thousand for each block. This will help maintain mining and stabilize the number of coins in circulation (taking into account lost wallets and various other ways of destroying coins) at the level of 100 billion."

Astute users appreciated this solution. Here 's how one of the early Dogecoin fans responded to this:

"Fantastic decision. Now it has a realistic chance of becoming a usable currency instead of some bizarre speculative asset for early adopting hoarders. A win for basic economics. I'm still holding mine, as I was planning to anyway. I'd also like to thank the panic dumpers for spreading wealth to the incoming newbie shibes at discount prices. Such generosity."

Economists argue that given this decision, Dogecoin just might have a better chance of being used and transacted in the long-term.

“As long as it’s at a steady and predictable rate, you would want that inflation rate to more or less match the growth of the global economy,” James Angel, a finance professor at Georgetown University, told. “In order for a currency to survive, it’s got to be useful. One of the problems we learned with gold standard was that it’s too inflexible — it takes too long for gold miners to dig it up out of the ground. Having a nice, steady, predictable money supply is actually a good thing.”

Dogecoin is a truly "people's" cryptocurrency

Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency with a large user base that is traded on all cryptocurrency exchanges and retail investment platforms.
Dogecoin is suitable for daily purchases and payments due to its blocking speed (1 block per 1 minute) and low transaction fees of 0.01 DOGE ($0.0007 as of 07/17/2023). By comparison, Bitcoin has an average fee of $1.19 to $62.79 and a blocking rate of 10 minutes.
Dogecoin is the cryptocurrency of decent people: experts from the analytical company Elliptic emphasized that the share of payments related to illegal activities in Dogecoin is extremely small compared to other cryptocurrencies.
The Dogecoin community has proved to be surprisingly adept at rallying around causes and raising significant money. For example, in 2014 the Dogecoin Foundation raised $30,000 for the Doge4Kids program, which aimed to send service dogs to families and kids in need, and another $30,000 worth of Dogecoin was donated to help the Jamaican bobsled team reach the winter Olympics. Eric Nakagawa (co-founder of I Can Has Cheeseburger) started his own charity Doge4Water, which raised 40 million Dogecoin that’ll be used to build clean water projects in Kenya.

Elon Musk is a public supporter of Dogecoin

Electric car manufacturer Tesla has released a merch and an electric quadrocycle, sold exclusively for Doge.
Elon Musk said that Dogecoin will continue to be accepted for payment by Tesla, Starlink, Starship, SolarRoof, as well as at electric vehicle gas stations as a means of payment. He also stated that he plans to open a university in Texas with tuition fees in Dogecoin.
The Doge-1 lunar mission planned for July 2022 was fully paid for by Dogecoin by the Canadian company Geometric Energy Corporation. As part of the mission, the Doge-1 satellite will be launched into Moon orbit on a Falcon 9 rocket.
"By officially paying Doge for a deal of this magnitude, Geometric Energy Corporation and SpaceX have strengthened Doge in the status of a settlement currency when conducting lunar business in the space field," said Samuel Reed, Chief executive Officer of GEC.
Earlier, Musk repeatedly mentioned Dogecoin in his tweets. So, in mid-April, the head of SpaceX posted on Twitter a painting by Spanish artist Joan Miro "Dog Barking at the moon" and wrote in a post that it was "Doge barking at the moon." After that, Dogecoin doubled in price. At the end of April, this cryptocurrency rose in price by 24% in an hour after another tweet by Musk.
Now Dogecoin ranks tenth in the list of the most capitalized cryptocurrencies.