Users of the half-serious virtual currency Dogecoin are raising 30 million coins, worth about $13,545, in order to reimburse victims of a massive Christmas heist. Two days ago, hackers broke into two major wallets, Dogewallet and Instadoge, and made off with dogecoins belonging to "shibes," the community's term for Dogecoin users.

"In order to reach the moon we have to take care of each other and keep the spirit of community and faith in each other and the services that help spread the love of Dogecoin," writes Ben Doernberg, one of the eight members of the Dogecoin subreddit who started the fundraising effort. "Thus, we are launching an effort to reimburse as many shibes as possible who lost their savings in the hacks."

The effort has raised 4 million dogecoins so far

The effort has raised 4,037,877 dogecoins so far, worth about $1,823. Donors can send money through SaveDogemas.com. Doernberg and his associates say they are working on a system where victims can register claims for reimbursement. The goal is to raise the money in 12 days.

Dogecoin is based on the cryptographic currency Litecoin, which is in turn based on the open source code for the better-known virtual currency Bitcoin. Based on the Doge meme, it has seen rapid adoption in the short two weeks it's been around. The Dogecoin community on Reddit now has 19,000 members.