What is Dogecoin? Explained in simple words (Ultimate 2021 Guide)
Tags: cryptocurrencyinvest, dogecoin, cryptocurrency, dogecoinnews
Published: 2021-03-03 11:25:08

---
title: What is Dogecoin? Explained in simple words (Ultimate 2021 Guide)
published: true
date: 2021-02-28 17:58:47 UTC
tags: cryptocurrencyinvest,dogecoin,cryptocurrency,dogecoinnews
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#### Crypto

### What is Dogecoin? Explained in Simple Words (Ultimate 2021 Guide)

#### Everything you need to know about this trending meme coin

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*OMrOdXjsUZRndyblxoqJNg.png)<figcaption>Photo by <a href="https://medium.com/@hi-armaan/">Armaan</a> based on the <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dogecoin_and_bitcoin.jpg">photo</a> by <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dogecoin_and_bitcoin.jpg">SHIBA MINT</a> via <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0">CC BY-SA 4.0</a></figcaption>

### What is Dogecoin 🤔

![Man holding a physical Gold representation of 10 Dogecoins](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*k_Qr-QU3e_LUZcO-QNRpdQ.jpeg)<figcaption>Photo by <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GoldDSide.jpg">SHIBA MIN</a>T via <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0">CC BY-SA 4.0</a></figcaption>

According to Dogecoin’s official website- **Dogecoin** is a fun, new, and rapidly growing form of digital currency. This form of digital currency is called “cryptocurrency”; a type of digital currency. Cryptocurrency is completely anonymous, decentralized, and extremely secure. Dogecoin is also known as **“DOGE”** and its symbol is  **“Ð”.**

In simple words, Dogecoin is almost similar to Bitcoin you can buy and sell it just like you buy and sell Bitcoin. You can mine it (more on that below) just like you can mine Bitcoin and you can do almost everything with it, you can do with Bitcoin.

### Who created it 🧐

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*Lefzd6O0pb7-IOiUYlrARg.jpeg)

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*iyAKLH7bYzux4gM0I64N7A.png)<figcaption>Co-founders of Dogecoin Billy Markus (left) and Jackson Palmer (right), Photo via <a href="https://everipedia.org/">Everipedia</a></figcaption>

Originally started as a joke inspired by the popular “Doge” meme of 2013. Dogecoin was created by Adobe software engineer **Jackson Palmer** and IBM software engineer [**Billy Markus**](https://twitter.com/BillyM2k) (“Shibetoshi Nakamoto”).

### How it all started 🤨

![A Laptop on a desk](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/0*5OZXZ5ZbkyzHNr-f)<figcaption>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@dtopkin1?utm_source=medium&amp;utm_medium=referral">Dayne Topkin</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com?utm_source=medium&amp;utm_medium=referral">Unsplash</a></figcaption>

After Bitcoin’s success, numerous **altcoins** (alternative cryptocurrencies to Bitcoin) started popping up and Jackson Palmer couldn’t believe the huge number of altcoins appearing every day in the market so he jokingly tweeted that he is investing in Dogecoin a fake meme-based coin to mock the crypto industry but everyone took it seriously and a strong community formed around it very soon that took it further than Palmer ever imagined.

Palmer then decided to team up with Billy Markus to create Dogecoin a reality. Dogecoin adopted the face of the Japanese Shiba Inu dog breed (from the meme) as its name and logo.

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*3wsckZR28RzJprnonIH7_Q.png)

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*MvCtvB_GVXcicH-rQnMIoA.png)

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*BIqR_Rogq9xTOFuvt-J5pA.png)<figcaption>Snapshots of Dogecoin.com- Current (left), after 30 days from launch(middle) and one day after launch (right)</figcaption>

The idea behind creating a meme-inspired cryptocurrency is that founders wanted to create crypto that could reach a broader demographic than Bitcoin and is also “fun” to use.

On December 6, 2013 founders officially launched Dogecoin and within 30 days there were over a million visitors to [**Dogecoin.com**](https://dogecoin.com/).

### How to use it 😐

Dogecoin is similar to paper money and you can use it just like you use real money. You can use it both on online and offline stores (if they accept it). You can buy almost anything from groceries to electronics using Dogecoin.

![Screenshot of a tweet showing a board saying “Dogecoin accepted here” on a door of a hotel](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/828/1*ddMcs_ZGaJOborA34nFaWQ.jpeg)

One of the most popular uses for Dogecoin as mentioned on its official website is “tipping” fellow internet-goers who create or share great content. Think of it as a more meaningful “like” or upvote, with real value that can be used all across the internet.

### How to get Dogecoin? 🤩

There are several ways to get Dogecoin, you can:-

- **Buy them ** 💵
- **Mine them ** ⛏
- **Use a Dogecoin faucet**
- **Get them by participating in the Dogecoin community**

**Note:-** _If you are new to Dogecoin then you will need a wallet to store your coins no matter how you get them, you can either use your favorite third-party wallet or download the official one from _[**_here_**](https://dogecoin.com/)_._

#### How to Buy Dogecoin

![A man holding a credit or a debit card sitting in front of a laptop](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/0*dbam-l3qMgpj0YFp)<figcaption>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@rupixen?utm_source=medium&amp;utm_medium=referral">rupixen.com</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com?utm_source=medium&amp;utm_medium=referral">Unsplash</a></figcaption>

This is the easiest way to get DOGE. Buying DOGE or any other crypto from an exchange is almost as easy as buying something from Amazon. Some exchanges from where you can buy DOGE are-

- [BitTrex](https://global.bittrex.com/)
- [Poloniex](https://www.poloniex.com/)
- [Binance](https://www.binance.com/en)
- [Tidex](https://tidex.com/)
- [Kraken](https://www.kraken.com/)

**Note:-** _For your own safety always buy and sell Dogecoin (or any other crypto) through a trustworthy and reliable crypto exchange. For beginners, it is better to use popular exchanges (like- Binance). Never share your pin, password, OTP, and other similar information with anyone._

#### How to Mine Dogecoin

Mining Dogecoin is not as difficult as Bitcoin (but also not as easy as you think) you can mine it on your Laptop or computer but that will be not much profitable, but if you have powerful hardware like dedicated ASIC Dogecoin miners then you can try mining it, you can use online calculators like [**CoinWarz**](https://www.coinwarz.com/) and [**WhatToMine**](https://whattomine.com/) to calculate how much profitable mining will be for you as it depends on various factors like electricity costs, hardware costs, the capability of your miner, etc.

![Screenshot of mining profitability calculator WhatToMine](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*p4ryVBSZ-Mr-jefWpB8AXQ.png)<figcaption>Screenshot of mining profitability calculator WhatToMine</figcaption>

You can solo mine Dogecoin if you have (really) powerful hardware or join a mining pool like [**Prohashing**](https://prohashing.com/) **.**

To know more about mining and how to mine Dogecoin check out these amazing articles:-

- [**How to Mine Dogecoin: The EASY WAY**](https://www.exodus.com/blog/how-to-mine-dogecoin/) | Exodus Blog
- [**How to mine Dogecoin**](https://howtomine.com/dogecoin/) | HowToMine.com
- [**How to Mine Dogecoin: Complete Guide For Beginners**](https://u.today/guides/crypto-mining/how-to-mine-dogecoin-complete-guide-for-beginners) | U.Today
- [**Dogecoin Mining: How to Mine Dogecoin — Beginners Guide**](https://www.bitdegree.org/crypto/tutorials/dogecoin-mining) | BitDegree
- [**Shibe School 101 — Lesson #1: Mining ~ explaining Cryptocurrency as simply as possible**](https://www.reddit.com/r/dogecoin/comments/ljz89k/shibe_school_101_lesson_1_mining_explaining/) | By Dogecoin creator Billy Markus

#### Dogecoin Faucet

![Homepage of Doge Faucet](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*KDfgXTdOll0xNncUYlhhoQ.png)<figcaption>Homepage of Doge Faucet</figcaption>

A **faucet** is a website that will give you free DOGE, but only a small amount just to introduce you to Dogecoin, in the crypto world purpose of a faucet is to introduce you to a cryptocurrency by giving you a small amount of that particular crypto so that you can try out a new crypto risk-free before you buy it. [**Dogefaucet**](https://www.dogefaucet.com/en) is a faucet you can use to get some free DOGE.

### Dogecoin vs Bitcoin (Technical comparison)

![Bitcoin](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/0*sQnZedu0kYFTb0ag)<figcaption>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@silverhousehd?utm_source=medium&amp;utm_medium=referral">André François McKenzie</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com?utm_source=medium&amp;utm_medium=referral">Unsplash</a></figcaption>

Bitcoin’s value is so high these days that most of us can’t even afford to purchase a Bitcoin, we can only think of becoming a **Bitcoin billionaire** in our dreams while Dogecoin as a young and relatively new currency in the crypto world is very affordable, in fact with just $1 you can purchase 18.22916097 Dogecoins while for a dollar you will get only 0.00001744 BTC (at the time of writing this article may be less or more in future).

> Early adopters who gambled on Bitcoin in its early days are now billionaires among the wealthiest people in the world

The current price of Dogecoin is so low in comparison to other popular and mainstream cryptos that many don’t even consider trying it but the price of Bitcoin was also very low in its early days and those early adopters who gambled on Bitcoin in its early days are now billionaires among the wealthiest people in the world. Investment is always a risky game you don’t know what will happen.

Bitcoin has a finite supply limit of 21,000,000 and Dogecoin has an infinite supply. Dogecoin’s protocol is based mostly on **Litecoin** and its **Hash function** (algorithm) is **Scrypt** based which means you just can’t mine Dogecoin with your existing Bitcoin mining equipment (if you have one) as Bitcoin’s Hash function is based on  **SHA-256.**

Block time for Bitcoin is 10 mins while it is only a min for Dogecoin that simply means that Bitcoin is hard to mine than Dogecoin and if successful then you will get a **block reward** (reward a miner will get after successful mining) of 10,000 for Dogecoin and 7.19 for Bitcoin.

### Community

![Dogecoin community subreddit- r/dogecoin on Reddit](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*G1qsbQ5f4YjbxdxIBQzI5A.png)<figcaption>Dogecoin community subreddit- r/dogecoin on Reddit</figcaption>

Dogecoin has a really strong and welcoming community. The Dogecoin community has around 1.2 million members (at the time of writing this) on subreddit r/dogecoin.

Dogecoin community is known to support various philanthropic works, like:-

#### Winter Olympics

More than **$25,000** worth of Dogecoins was donated to the Jamaican Bobsled Team by the Dogecoin community as the team was selected for the 2014 Winter Olympics but could not afford to go there.

#### Doge4Water

The Dogecoin foundation with the help of **charity: water** donated around **$30,000** to provide clean drinking water to those who don’t have access to it for more details click [here](https://www.charitywater.org/dogecoin-foundation#impact).

#### NASCAR

Community raised around **$55,000** to sponsor NASCAR driver Josh Wise.

If you are interested you can join the community, [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/dogecoin/) (subreddit r/dogecoin on Reddit) as it is open for everyone to join and participate.

### Is Dogecoin Elon Musk’s favorite currency?

Before I say anything take a look at these tweets posted by Musk on his official Twitter account-

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/598/1*CbAnsyLcKas-M7ClypdGMg.png)

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/598/1*UzL8bSBIFqKYDckDj6b8Tg.png)

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/598/1*agNUNtvU0AyzmAYUubEOfw.png)

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/598/1*VixYVSJrzq5306ef28WwcQ.png)

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/598/1*yaoPzH0_C9-62I6Ln4HTJg.png)

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/598/1*JnluPG-nrmt_qa42ss-Kxw.png)

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/598/1*vewLDgSI_TX4fUVfYAFz4A.png)

It’s all about Dogecoin, Elon Musk shortly after announcing that he is taking an off from Twitter, started tweeting about DOGE which caused its price to hit an all-time high. If you take a look at the price graph of DOGE then you will notice that its price increased every time Musk tweeted about it, experts call this phenomenon **“The Musk effect”**.

Though he was tweeting for fun (something he normally does on Twitter) when he started tweeting about DOGE. I think he was not as serious as Twitter users took him he was just following his normal routine of meming on Twitter. But being a Genius Billionaire CEO having nearly 50 million followers on Twitter, he has the power to shake the market.

Can’t say if DOGE is Musk’s favorite crypto or not, but he supports cryptocurrencies and has also invested in them. He also tweeted that he has even bought some DOGE for his son.

![Tweet by Elon Musk](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/598/1*vewLDgSI_TX4fUVfYAFz4A.png)

Various things together contributed to the surge in the price of DOGE like various campaigns and (of course) memes but it was Elon Musk who brought this crypto to the light, before that it was almost unknown only geeks knew about it but for normal people (including me) it was non-existent. After Musk started tweeting about it, it drew everyone’s attention that something is going with this crypto and shortly after that almost every major media publication, website and influencer were talking about it.

![Meme of Elon Musk holding Dogecoin](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*ySd0x1P2zXiZTxQ7Eg2dvw.jpeg)

### Conclusion

Dogecoin is not serious crypto like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and others. Its founders didn’t create it for profit instead they created it for fun, it has a passionate and strong community that is confident about it, and its a young crypto that has become quite popular in the past few months and before crypto its a meme and all that makes it a different coin in the crypto world maybe crypto that we didn’t ask for, but the one we needed.

![Meme about Dogecoin](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/869/1*4MdEdYmr-Bypr4DMUs33IA.png)

Its value may not be as high as Bitcoin but it is still unique and quite popular crypto that has a bright future as experts and its community members predict. If you don’t consider it as a good option to invest in then you can use it to explore the crypto world especially if you are new to all this. DOGE is a great and safe currency to play with before diving deeper into the ocean of cryptocurrencies you can use DOGE to learn about it, explore it and then make a serious bet either on DOGE or any other crypto out there.

**_Disclaimer:_** _I am not a financial advisor and the advice given in this article is not investment, trading, or financial advice of any kind. You always trade and invest at your own risk. This article is only meant to educate you. Always consult a certified financial advisor if you need help regarding financial investment matters._

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