Cryptocurrencies are about to change our perception of how we see the world of business and finances. When the idea emerged back in 2009, with the introduction of Bitcoin, there were no signs that the concept would reach these heights. Over a decade later, we can see that not only has it managed to do so, but there are also a plethora of cryptos on the market. Naturally, not all of them are significant.
To be precise, only a handful of them have a serious market cap. Besides Bitcoin, we can see that only Ethereum and Litecoin have a significant role. At one point, it looked like this order of things was about to change with the introduction of Dogecoin. We are talking about crypto that has started small and was under the radar for the first year or so.
At one point, Elon Musk started talking about it on his Twitter account and said that it is an interesting solution. From that point, Dogecoin’s market cap and value have started to rise significantly. If you take a look at the market now, you will see that the total value of Dogecoin in circulation is roughly $40 billion. It became so popular that Robinhood’s crypto trading system almost collapsed completely.
The Origins
What separates Dogecoin from all other cryptos is that it didn’t start as a serious project. Even its developers are saying that it was some kind of a joke. What many people don’t know is that it is based on a popular “dog” meme. A certain period after its release it attracted interest from Snoop Dog and Elon Musk, who has started talking about it. Since these two influential persons talked about it, the interest in it skyrocketed relatively quickly.
The project was started back in 2013 as a joke. Two developers are responsible for its creation, Jackson Palmer and Billy Markus. What is interesting to say is that these two developers haven’t even met before. So, you can imagine their surprise when people have started investing their money into it. In the first month after cryptos’ release, one million people visited their website.
Billy Markus stated that he came across a meme back in 2013, and he thought it was really funny. After that, the duo started working on this project. It is interesting to say that they have used Bitcoin’s source code. They have just modified it and created their crypto. At the same time, the developers borrowed some ideas from Litecoin.
The Connection with Elon Musk
Many people have heard that a famous entrepreneur, who recently became the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, has some sort of connection to this crypto. However, it needs to be said that this is not true. Instead, Mr. Musk is just a fan of Dogecoin. He posted some tweets about it, and by doing that, he influenced its rise at one point. He did that more than once and made it popular.
Besides this example, Elon Musk is known as a person who is interested in cryptocurrencies as a concept. He made some massive investments in BTC over the years and was influential in making it as valuable as it is today. Dogecoin was simply a joke that still makes people from all over the world investing in it. It’s no wonder many people describe it as “world’s heftiest joke”.
Dogecoin vs. Bitcoin
In the first couple of months in 2024, Dogecoin was among the busiest cryptos, alongside Bitcoin and Ethereum. At one point, its popularity was so high that even experts have talked about the possibility of it becoming a significant player on the market as BTC. While this is not something likely to happen, it certainly is not impossible. After all, it is important to say that these two cryptos have some differences. Let’s take a look at some of them.
The Original Idea
As you probably know, BTC was created back in 2009. The original idea was to be a store of value or a currency. The team behind is unknown. The only known fact is that the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto is the one behind it. Many people believe that this is just a pseudonym. Over the years, there were numerous theories about who was the mastermind behind this project. Even today, we don’t have this information.
When it comes down to Dogecoin, we’ve explained the majority of its origins. It started as a joke between two developers who haven’t even met before. Its name derives from “doge meme”, as we’ve said. Since we are talking about a joke that got serious over time, we can say that there were almost no expectations about whether it will be popular and how much it will worth in the future
The Limitations
Even though BTC is the “king of all cryptos”, that doesn’t mean that all others are interested in following its example. The reason is quite simple, Bitcoin has a limitation, in terms of the maximum number of coins. The figure is 21 million. Currently, the market capitalization is slightly above $1 trillion. However, it will rise since there are around 1 million coins that will be mined in the future. If you are interested in it, you can trade with BTC on bitcoinrevolution.org.
However, it needs to be said that its market capitalization is slightly over $40 billion and that the current number of coins out there is around 130 billion. Even though it has a price of $0.30 at one point, we can see that it has declined in the last period. Currently, we can see that it is around $0.19. it is uncertain whether it will rise in the future.
The Conclusion
With all the information we have about Dogecoin, we can say that its nickname “heftiest joke in the world” is a perfect way to describe it. Nevertheless, we can see that the joke is not as funny as it was just a couple of months ago, and we can see that its price has been dropping lately. However, there is no way we can know if this will change in the future.