From the SMH today:

Forget about bitcoin. The latest go-to cryptocurrency is called dogecoin, a digital denomination that began life less than two months ago as a jokey tweet made by 26-year-old Australian Jackson Palmer.

But his joke has now taken on a life of its own. The total value of the market for dogecoin (pronounced dough-je coin) has just topped $US60 million ($68 million) and it has spawned a community comprising thousands of buyers, sellers, merchants, beggars, speculators and “miners”, the people who mint the money.

This week, transactions worth a total of $US14 million were made, including one Chinese investor who bought $US5 million worth of the virtual currency. And on a daily basis dogecoin transactions are outstripping those in the more established bitcoin market, albeit for a smaller overall value.

While there are still question marks about the long-term viability and security of these alternative currencies, associate professor David Glance from the University of Western Australia’s Centre for Software Practice, for one, believes they have a big future – especially if they gain the backing of the official banking system.