In a sign of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general becoming more mainstream than ever, there is now a cryptocurrency based on the doge (AKA dogge, or shibe) meme called dogecoin, or doge for short. Here’s 5 Fast Facts about this new cryptocurrency. See the newest update to Dogecoin here.

1. One Dogecoin (Doge) Is Worth Approximately 1/100 Cent (As of 12/10/13)

While Dogecoin is not currently traded on any exchanges, Dogecoin has been traded at a rate of 10,000 Dogecoin for $1. The trade happened on the Dogecoin subreddit:

While the negotiations were clearly very intense, the Dogecoin finally changed hands, establishing a market rate for doge everywhere.

Of course, that doesn’t mean a million Dogecoins could realistically be sold for $100. There is not enough demand for dogecoin to likely sustain such a transaction — yet. (Edit:12/10/13: Redditor offers .2 BTC for doge)

2. Wow, A Total of 100 Billion Doge Can Be Mined

Dogecoin uses Scrypt encryption meaning it is like Litecoin in that it cannot be effectively harvested using ASICs, or specialized Bitcoin-mining equipment. Essentially, this means that Dogecoin, compared to Bitcoin, is not as susceptible to being quickly mined by people with powerful, purpose-specific hardware. However, Scrypt-based cryptocurrencies like doge can still be mined very effectively using graphics cards and therefore, the average user will not be able to mine very much doge against people with pricey, but relatively common consumer hardware.

The block reward structure depicted above (or how fast miners get paid in doge to verify dogecoin transactions) uses a fairly common halving structure, leveling out at 10,000 doge per block, or mining unit, after block 600,000. Currently, doge has been mined only to block 4,000 as of 12/9/13.

3. Dogecoin’s Wallet Appears to Be Based on Luckycoin

This image, posted in the dogecoin subreddit, shows that after trying to encrypt one’s dogecoin wallet, a warning would indicate the user could lose all of their “Luckycoin.” It seems likely that Doge was based on Luckycoin as both cryptocurrencies use Scrypt. Dogecoin probably simply copied the Luckycoin wallet.

Still, doge has little need to be a legitimately unique cryptocurrency since it is based on a gimmick, comparable to Sexcoin, which like doge offers little to no distinguishing features other than the marketing spin. Though in doge’s case, the appeal is “wow” not sex.

4. There Are Over 500 People Actively Mining and Creating Doge

In dogecoin’s most popular mining pool, a website where users put their computational resources together to amass doge, over 500 people are currently mining the cryptocurrency. The project has been a huge success and led the creator of the pool to immediately seek out a new server to handle the load.

Many joke that Doge is actually not mined by computers, but by the following process (5mb gif that is worth it).

Wow. Such coin. What crypto. Bitcoin Such Scared. Share Tweet Email

5. Such Dogecoiners Appear to Be Very Bullish About The Future Value of Dogecoin

A Bitcoin cliche is that the cryptocurrency is “going to the moon,” or set to raise in price dramatically. Currently the second highest regarded post on the reddit doge forum is titled “Such Moon! Very Going!”:



Still, other dogecoiners remained bearish, using a simple doge-graph to convey that doge would likely follow a ubiquitously cited Bitcoin adoption pattern (below doge-graph):



Time will tell regarding the future of Dogecoin. Even though it is a gimmicky cryptocurrency based on a meme, its novelty and playfulness is welcome in a world saturated with lazy imitators and malicious brand heists. Wow.

