Dogecoin (DOGE) was created as a lighthearted alternative to traditional cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin in 2013. The name and Shiba Inu logo are based on a meme. Unlike Bitcoin, which was designed to be scarce, Dogecoin is intentionally abundant — with 10,000 new coins mined every minute and no maximum supply.
For most of its existence, Dogecoin (pronounced “dohj coin”) was considered to be an amusing “memecoin” beloved by its community — but with relatively little value. That changed in 2021, when DOGE became one of the larger cryptocurrencies by market cap — with a total value that topped $80 billion in 2021, even though each individual coin is worth pennies.
Like more prominent cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, Dogecoin is also secured by mining. Thousands of computers around the world compete to mine Dogecoin in order to share the millions of new coins added to the supply per day, while also validating and processing network transactions.
Early in Dogecoin’s history, any computer could be useful for mining DOGE. As its popularity has surged however, mining competition has increased, making it difficult for small-scale miners with regular hardware. With a powerful graphics processor unit, a miner may be able to earn Doge, however a more powerful, specialized computer called an ASIC is likely necessary in order to mine profitably.
In 2021, Dogecoin experienced a significant price run-up as personalities like Mark Cuban, Snoop Dogg, and Elon Musk expressed their interest in Dogecoin. Musk even went so far as to joke, “The most entertaining outcome and the most ironic outcome would be that dogecoin becomes the currency of Earth in the future.”
You can buy, sell, hold, send, and receive DOGE using Coinbase and a number of other financial technology companies.
Released: December 2013
