On Thursday, we told you the story of Dogecoin, the most 2013 thing of 2013.

It combines the meme of the year — doge, which are images of Comic Sans thought bubbles written in the imagined syntax of a devastatingly cute Shiba Inu puppy — with a digital currency.

At the time, it’s popularity was exploding thanks to its increasing use in “tipping” people on the Internet for having performed a good deed.

That Thursday, the average price “surged” to more than $US0.000003, and briefly became the 7th-largest altcoin by market cap.

But starting around Friday, Dogecoin prices began to plummet.

As of Sunday night, prices now stand at $US0.0003 — an approximately 80% drop-off from Thursday highs.

We just got an email from Billy Markus, Dogecoin’s co-creator explaining what happened. He said that the currency basically experienced an unsustainable explosion in popularity over the past 72 hours, as it became the most profitable altcoin to mine. That meant it required very little computing power to mine large amounts of Dogecoin. Large mining pools instantly seized on this phenomenon, and then sold out of their positions to everyone trying to get their hands on it.

“Basically multipools (and probably people too) sold a lot and ate up all the bids,” he wrote.

Still, 14th place ain’t nothin’, and it remains the most popular altcoin for tipping.

Here’s the chart (as expressed in Bitcoin):

And in terms of market cap — it’s now back to 14th place, behind “Zetacoin” (with our embellishments), having fallen about 70%:

Business Insider Emails & Alerts Site highlights each day to your inbox. Email Address Join

Follow Business Insider Australia on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.