A cryptocurrency is a form of digital asset based on a network that is distributed across a large number of computers. This decentralized structure allows them to exist outside the control of governments and central authorities. Dogecoin is a type of cryptocurrency created by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, who decided to create a payment system as a joke, making fun of the wild speculation in cryptocurrencies at the time. It was initially released on December 6, 2013, and quickly developed its own online community, reaching a market capitalization of US$85,314,347,523 on May 5, 2021.
Dogecoin.com promotes the currency as the "fun and friendly internet currency", referencing its origins as a joke. It further gained major popularity when founder, CEO, and Chief Engineer at SpaceX and one of the richest person of the world - Elon Musk talked about it. Billy Markus was a IBM software engineer and Jackson Palmer was a Adobe Software engineer.
Palmer had purchased the domain Dogecoin.com and added a splash screen, which featured the coin's logo and scattered Comic SanMarkus reached out to Palmer after seeing the site, and started efforts to develop the currency. Markus designed Dogecoin prototype based on other cryptocurrencies such as litecoin and Lucky coin using the scrypt technology in their proof-of-work algorithm.
On December 19, 2013, Dogecoin jumped nearly 300 percent in value in 72 hours, rising from US$0.00026 to $0.00095,with a volume of billions of Dogecoins per day. This growth occurred during a time when bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies were reeling from China's decision to forbid Chinese banks from investing into the bitcoin economy. But three days later its value dropped by 80%.
