It has been said that if you lead, others will follow. The cryptocurrency Bitcoin has enjoyed a meteoric streak of success, with the Bitcoin being accepted by an increasing number of real-world stores — who see it as an attractive option to the high cost of credit card processing — and with a single Bitcoin selling for nearly $1,000 in the current market.

“Bitcoin was started by hardcore computer experts as a deadly-serious attempt to change the economic and political landscape, and it quickly attracted a core group of libertarians and cryptography enthusiasts,” explained Ben Doernberg, a technology advocate with WITNESS, to the Daily Beast.

The news has been full of stories of alternative currencies trying to be the next Bitcoin. Take, for example, the now relatively short existence of the cryptocurrency “Coinye.”

Named and styled after the flamboyant hip-hop artist and tabloid-target Kanye West, the virtual currency — which was scheduled to launch on Jan. 11 but actually launched early — promised “no premine, no screwed up fake ‘fair’ launches, shyster devs, muted channels, and f**ked up wallets,” as reported by VICE.

“Coinye” was meant to create a virtual currency system in which the average person can enter into without the need of expensive “mining” computers, spending large amounts of money to trade for existing coins or being an “insider” in the various cryptocurrency communities.

The problem with “Coinye,” it turned out, is that the creator of the currency did not have West’s permission to use his name or likeness. West, a shrewd self-promoter and marketer, took offense and sent the developers a cease-and-desist order on the grounds of trademark infringement, brand dilution and unfair competition on Jan. 6. On Jan. 14, after attempts to rebrand the currency away from any reference to West — instead, focusing on the South Park half-man half-fish satire of West –the currency collapsed, with the developers leaving a note, “Coinye is dead. You win, Kanye.”

DogecoinsThere are currently more than 25 established cryptocurrencies on the market, including established currencies — such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, PPCoin and Namecoin — and smaller currencies — such as the RonPaulCoin, Terracoin, BBQCoin and Megacoin. In this increasingly crowded market-space, one can find a digital currency that meets their particular requirements for eccentricity.

One such digital currency, the Dogecoin, has recently made news for its role in getting the Jamaican two-men bobsled team to Sochi for the Winter Olympics. Counterintuitive for a tropical nation, Jamaica actually has a well-developed Winter Olympics tradition that started in 1988, when the nation’s four-man bobsled team competed in the Calgary Olympics. However, the cash-strapped and sponsorship-poor bobsled team was unable to foot the bill after news came Saturday that Jamaica would be returning to the Winter Olympics for the first time in 12 years.

While the Jamaican Olympic Committee and the Sochi Organizing Committee have stepped up to cover the team’s travel and lodging expenses to the games, equipment costs remain an open question. Liam Butler, the director of the Dogecoin Foundation — who remembers the Jamaican National Bobsleigh Team warmly from its depiction in the Disney film “Cool Runnings” — moved to help out by starting the crowdfunding campaign Dogesled.

“It’s truly the first cryptocurrency for regular people, non-hackers,” said Dogecoin evangelist Clayburn Griffin to MintPress. “Yes, it’s still mined, but the philosophy behind it is really focused on community-building and being accessible to everyone. This is why people are simply giving away Dogecoins. I think that will set it apart from others like Bitcoin and Litecoin because it won’t just be hardcore hacker types and seedy underbellies of an anonymous Internet using them. It has the potential to be the de facto Internet currency, used by hackers as well as their moms.”

To everyone’s surprise, the campaign raised 584,623 Dogecoins (35 bitcoins or $33,434.45). More amazing, as the donations were made in Dogecoins, the increase in market activity caused the coins’ value to Bitcoins to increase by 50 percent.

The common cryptocurrency

“Myself and Jackson Palmer [the creator of Dogecoin] were at a local pub trivia in Sydney when we noticed the value of Dogecoin had more than doubled since we’d last checked, so we raced back to my house to ensure we could get the best price for the donations in a form the team could actually use,” Butler told the Guardian. “As much as we have faith in Dogecoin to become the community currency of the Internet, we still understand that the team needs to buy their airfares in a fiat currency.”

Along with the $45,000 that has been raised so far on Indiegogo and the $126,000 raised on Crowdtilt, the olympians appear ready for Sochi. This, however, begs interesting questions about the hero currency du jour. Dogecoin, despite its fractional cent valuation, is trading at a volume that exceeds all other cryptocurrencies combined.

Dogecoin has defined itself based on its popularity among the Internet crowd. Based on the popular Doge meme, Dogecoin started as a joke. Noticing the explosion of alternate cryptocurrency, Palmer, a marketer at Adobe, tweeted on Nov. 27, “Investing in Dogecoin, pretty sure it’s the next big thing. http://tmblr.co/ZXKfHx-duU4J.“ After being convinced by his friends, Palmer enlisted Butler, a computer programmer at IBM, and created the new currency.

“I think the real reason for Dogecoin’s success is that it’s added a friendly face to the notion of a global, digital currency—in turn, we’ve built a large passionate community of users, for many of whom Dogecoin is their first experience with cryptocurrency,” Palmer mused to the Daily Beast.

While the cryptocurrency, which is currently being valuated in hundredths of a cent, is unlikely to make anyone rich, it is finding a place in social media as a non-intrusive way of Internet users to “tip” each other. Adding to the fact that the quickly-recognizable face of the Shiba Inu that starred in dozens of beloved memes is the public image of the currency, the cryptocurrency — despite its economic worthlessness — has the potential to grow into something huge.

Populist Money

The success of the Dogecoin has, expectantly, created imitators. Image-based currencies, such as the Catcoin, RonPaulcoin, the “Coinye” and the SexCoin have sought to draw on the emotional response of potential users in a way that surpasses the currency itself. As the speculation of what may be the next big thing continues, and as these new entrants suffer the slings and arrows that have plagued bitcoin — such as the theft of $16,000 in Dogecoins last month — the question of if a populist currency is a good thing remains unanswered.

But for many, the future of the virtual currency may lie on the face of a smiling dog.

“I’ve never been involved much with cryptocurrency before,” Griffin continued. “I heard of Bitcoin, and I’m somewhat tech savvy, but all this stuff was too foreign to me. Then Dogecoin arrived, and I got a few tips of the stuff on Reddit. It’s completely pulled me in. Normally, I would have never owned a cryptocurrency, but now I do because Dogecoin is more accessible than others.”