What began as a joke a few years ago, not only grabbed headlines over the past few months but has also gone on to become one of the better-known cryptocurrencies. Yes, we're talking about Dogecoin. The cryptocurrency was developed in December 2013 as a joke by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer. They intended it to be used as a new decentralised cryptocurrency for peer-to-peer transactions. The duo chose the Japanese dog breed Shiba Inu as the branding for Dogecoin. Then Shiba Inu was already popular online because of the “Doge” meme.
Since then, Dogecoin has come a long way. Despite its lower price compared to Bitcoin or other altcoins, it continues to remain popular.
The Technology Behind Dogecoin
Dogecoin was developed using the technology that was used to build Bitcoin. Technically, unlike altcoins such as Ethereum, Dogecoin isn't very different from Bitcoin. However, it does exhibit minor changes in its proof-of-work hashing algorithm and total supply.
How Did Dogecoin Begin?
Dogecoin was introduced as a “meme currency” on December 6, 2013, by Markus and Palmer. They were also among the earliest Bitcoin adopters. Although they started off with their project for fun, Dogecoin has gained much popularity and a fan base today.
How Is Dogecoin Different From Bitcoin?
Although Dogecoin is based on Bitcoin's technology, it is different from it. As compared to Bitcoin, it has a shorter block time, an extravagant supply, and very low transaction fees (1 DOGE for every 1000 bytes of transaction size).
Dogecoin's shorter block time means it can quickly create new blocks. For it, the block time is one minute. That's fairly short as compared to Bitcoin's 10 minutes. Its blocks payout 10,000 DOGE per block.
What Is Dogecoin's Value In Today's World?
If you are looking at its market price, it may not amount to much. At the time of writing, Dogecoin's price was around Rs. 17.49). However, it has become a viable and popular cryptocurrency for its simple usage during small transactions over the internet. That's possible only because of its low transaction fees.
Click here to track live Dogecoin prices.
Dogecoin is a largely volatile cryptocurrency. However, it has a large community devoted to it. The loyalists call themselves “shibes”.
Over the past few months, Dogecoin has been endorsed by the likes of Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and rapper Meek Mill among others.
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