Translated material
Dogkoin was invented cryptocurrency as a joke. Now she costs a billion, and even its creator believes that the world has gone crazy
Dogkoin - an analogue of Bitcoin in a joke - in early January 2018 reached a market capitalization of two billion dollars. However, his creator Jackson Palmer does not consider this situation normal. He states that when even taxi drivers begin to talk about cryptocurrencies, the industry is included in the "period of speculative cryptomania."
The Dogecoin cryptocurrency was invented in December 2013 by Portland Programist Billy Marcus and a marketer from Sydney Jackson Palmer-they were inspired by the famous Internet meme about the dog of Siba-Inu. Dogkoin quickly became popular, especially among users of the Reddit service - thanks to the virus name, low price and ease of use. On the currency website , in the literally two clicks, you can download the necessary software to start an online wallet and begin to exchange dogchines and pay for various services.
There is a special thematic community on Reddit, where information about transactions in this currency is collected, as well as the fundraising of funds for charity. For example, in January 2014, Dogkoin lovers financed the trip to the Olympics in Sochi of the Jamaica national team in Bobslei and the Indian Saohman Shiva Keshanan. In March of the same year, 67.8 million dogchines (55 thousand dollars at the then rate) were collected for the participation of American Josh Wise in Nascar races. In addition, philanthropists raised 40 million dogchines (30 thousand dollars) for the organization Charity: Water, which is engaged in drinking water in the inhabitants of developing countries. A well was built for the funds raised in the basin of the Kenyan Tana River. Reddit users actively help each other. When immediately after launch in 2014, the Dogewallet platform was an attacked hacker, the community members compensated all the funds stolen from the wallets.
Initially, the creators of the currency planned that the size of the emission would be 100 billion dogs (this threshold was reached by mid -2015), but later they canceled the limit for virtual currency mining. Now almost 113 billion dogs are in circulation (5.2 billion new virtual coins are mined every year). After the initial rapid growth, when in February 2014, the capitalization of Dogkoin on the exchange approached 100 million dollars, the currency rate did not undergo significant changes for a long time. However, in the last months of 2017, its cost increased by 400%, due to which one Dogcoin became equal to 0.01 dollars. On January 4, the capitalization of the comic currency pierced a billion dollars, and on January 7 - two billion. However, as of January 15, it fell again and is now equal to $ 1.2 billion.
Starting the release of cryptocurrencies, marketer Jackson Palmer considered it as a significant alternative to the calculations of cash and operations of the banking system, the trust of which was undermined after the financial crisis of 2008. However, this area was quickly filled with scammers and dealers, as a result of which Palmer completely left the project in 2015. Now, when the total capitalization of the cryptocurrency market has exceeded $ 700 billion, largely due to the speculation of traders, the creator of Dogkoin was worried about it. The current assessment of Dogkoin was the result of “irrational enthusiasm” - a market mania that led to the fact that investors are buying inexpensive assets in the hope of their rapid growth, as was the case with Bitcoin, Palmer explained in a column for Motherboard. But constant excitement and thirst for profit distracts from the true purpose of cryptocurrencies.
In 2017, cryptocurrency ceased to be technological innovation and cash replacement, and instead, in fact, it became a new unregulated stock market. In 2017, Bitcoin began to be used for its own benefit by the financial institutions that he was designed to dismantle. I still cannot agree that the game for cryptocurrencies is over. And it is difficult to predict how long it will inflate and when this cryptopushor bursts. But the main question is now as follows: when the bubble will burst and the fashion for cryptocurrencies will pass, does the community find energy to create a real breakthrough technology again?