The price of Dogecoin, the world's third most traded cyrptocurrency, is down 9% this afternoon.

And that's a great thing.

Because the update from Dogecoin's creators causing the temporary price drop will ultimately ensure its longevity going forward.

In a message on Github this weekend, Sydney-based co-creator Jackson Palmer announced the amount of Dogecoin would not be fixed, meaning it's possible for an infinite amount of Dogecoin to be created. (This was first spotted by Ars Technica's Cyrus Favriar). Every new "block" of Dogecoin that gets mined will yield 10,000 units of the currency.

"This will help maintain mining and stabilize the number of coins in circulation (considering lost wallets and various other ways coins may be destroyed) at 100 billion," Palmer wrote.

This is close to how a normal fiat currency like the U.S. dollar works. Like the greenback, Dogecoin will now better be able to respond to increasing demand, as well as potential damages like those outlined by Palmer. It also gives incentives for miners to keep operating, thus helping keep the network more secure — as in Bitcoin, "mining" Dogecoin also serves to confirm the transactions taking place on the digital currency's master exchange ledger.

These all happen to be problems Bitcoin currently faces. Bitcoin has a early adoption and miner-arms-race regime. Those who got in earliest, or can mine the most, enjoy lopsided control over the Bitcoin market. We've discussed this elsewhere. The result is that they are crossing their fingers that Bitcoin adoption will become widespread, thus helping drive up value. It's hard to tell what's driving what, but the price has settled at $800 for a couple months now. That's a lot to pay for a single Bitcoin for someone just entering the market.

Ripple's David Schwartz wrote about this online recently:

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