There is a section in the "What is Dogecoin (DOGE)? - Dogecoin Guide" titled "What gives Dogecoin value?"; with this post I hope to contribute an item or two we don't usually hear about from both legacy media and even cryptocurrency-oriented media. Feel free to adjust as needed for Guide purposes.
It's a Survivor
The genesis block is the first block ever mined of a blockchain-- any blockchain. If cryptocurrency is thought of as a metaphorical blockchain, then Bitcoin is the genesis block of this meaphorical blockchain. A few dozen blocks up the chain is Ethereum, and Ethereum is just as well known as Bitcoin.
Earlier in this metaphorical blockchain, however, is Dogecoin.
Yes, Dogecoin came before Ethereum-- years before:
| Crypto | Year |
|---|---|
| Bitcoin | 2009 |
| Dogecoin | 2013 |
| Ethereum | 2015 |
Dogecoin was officially launched on 6 December 2013. Starting on 19 December 2013 and lasting 72 hours, DOGE almost quadrupled its price from USD 0.00026 to USD 0.00095. Three days after this run DOGE crashed 80%. Cryptocurrency was still obscure in 2013, but DOGE already had its first rise and fall cycle.
Days later-- literally, Christmas time-- millions of DOGE were stolen from Dogewallet, an online crypto wallet platform of the time. News of this theft spread far and wide over Twitter. This made Dogecoin the most mensioned altcoin on Twitter up to that time.
The first crypto boom took place in 2017, and during that time DOGE went from USD 0.00021 to a high of USD 0.0042. This spike took place over 70 days, then DOGE fell off a cliff over 2 weeks when it dropped by 75%. Dogecoin should have been wiped out, yet it survived to keep moving forward.
Fast forward to 2021, and DOGE is on the verge of breaking the USD 1 barrier. That's pretty amazing for something which began as a joke.
Increase in Retail Investing
According to Erin Gobler, one of the side effects of the 2020 Pandemic was an increase in retail investing. When nearly everyone was locked away at home, more free time became available for other activities; investing was one of them. 2020 was also the breakout year for mobile app Robinhood, and "much Doge" were purchased through Robinhood.
Given the complexities of cryptocurrencies, Dogecoin was the most accessible of them to new investors. If Bitcoin can be compared to one of the stocks on the Dow Jones or the New York Stock Exchange, and many of those are hundreds of dollars per share. Dogecoin, on the other hand, can be compared to over the counter stocks valued at cents per share. It's hard to go to the moon when you only have a few bucks to invest, and Dogecoin is priced to give its holders that chance.
Faster Mining
DOGE is mined using Scrypt rather than the SHA-256d hash algorithm first usd by Bitcoin. According to Erin Gobler, Dogecoins have a block time of about 60 seconds while for Bitcoin the block time is about 10 minnutes. Even if rewards for Dogecoin were less than those for Bitcoin, the miners would earn them more frequently.
Inflation
Bitcoin is famous for its limit of 21 million coins to b mined. This built-in scarcity adds to its desirability not only as in investment but also a speculation vehicle. Dogecoin, on the other hand, has no limit; or at the very least it's limit is sky high. Inflation is a feature of Dogecoin, and that means it's more easily available to anyone wanting DOGE.
Pop Culture
USD Billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Cuban are hypemen for DOGE. They're also active Twitter and other Web 2.0 social media platforms. Whatever people like these say about cryptocurrency in general impacts cryptos in general as well as DOGE in particular.
Snoop Dogg, Gene Simmons, and other celebrities are also known to be fans and users of DOGE. Given their influence, many people follow their lead. Why go with BAT (Basic Attention Token) when all the cool kids are buying, using, and HODLing DOGE?
The Community
Dogecoin was made as "fun and friendly internet currency," and its creators cryptocurrency in general to appeal to a broader demographic. In the process, Dogecoin became the gateway crypto to the larger world of cryptocurrencies.
Holders of DOGE considered themselves a community unlike holders of Bitcoin, Litecoin, and other cryptos. When millions of DOGE were stolen within one month of Dogecoin's official launch, The Community responded by donating funds to replenish wha had been stolen. This fundraising effort came to be known as "Save Dogemas"; within one month enough donations of were made to replenish the stolen funds.
As un-fun as that theft was for The Community, its members made the best of a bad situation and turned it into a piece of Dogecoin lore. Many people in The Community bonded over that experience, further strengthening The Community.
Given its origins as a joke and a meme, members of the Dogecoin community had fun with DOGE, cryptos, and pop culture. Many memes were created and shared. While many crypto holders took their investmens and speculations seriously, HODLers of DOGE had fun with whatever news was circulating at any given moment. If laughter is the best medicine, then The Community must have had the healthiest people in the world of crypto.
As one of the oldest altcoins (even older than Ethereum), Dogecoinhas proven to be a survivor not only of the ups and downs of markets but also incidents of theft.
Its appeal to a broader demographic helped make it popular among retail investors, especially when the 2020 Pandemic helped introduce Robinhood to a new class of investor.
The Scrypt hashing algorithm proved to be faster than Bitcoin's SHA-256d, and that helped Dogecoin gain popularity among miners.
While Bitcoin is capped at 21 million BTCs, Dogecoin has a virtually unlimited supply of DOGE thanks to inflation. This is partly why its market cap reached the Top 5 in early 2021.
USD billionaires-- we know who they are-- and other pop culture celebrities hype DOGE on their social media platforms and in the corporate media, keeping Dogecoin on people's minds constantly.
Dogecoin is known as much for it community as for its origins and its ubiquity in pop culture. Although The Community has fun making fun of the world of crypto in which they live, members of The Community proved their loyalty and esprit de corps to each other by raising funds to make up for what was stolen within one montth of the official launch of Dogecoin.
Partly because of inflation, Dogecoin became a Top 5 Market Cap crypto in early 2021, and a number of Dogecoin imitators were coined over the years. These two details prove that Dogecoin has value as a cryptocurrency.
The biggest knock on Dogecoin is its lack of use cases. Bitcoin had the most important use case there is: peer to peer money which is trustless and permissionless. Ethereum added smart contracts, and that kicked cryptos into a higher gear. Hive is known not only for cryptocurrency-powered social media but also its robust Layer 2 features which bring us LEO, CUB, POB, and hundreds of other tokens based on Hive blockchain.
Dogecoin has at least one use case, as an in-demand cryptocurrency. Its second use case is The Community; without The Community, would we even care about Dogecoin as much as we do today-- haters as well as fanboys?