The crypto scene is known for its fast pace – new blockchain projects sprout out of the ground like mushrooms, other stars in the crypto sky burn up just as fast as they rose. In our series “What has become of …?” we want to deal with projects at regular intervals, which have become a bit quieter recently. We want to find out what the current status looks like and whether we will possibly hear more about the topic again in the future.
Today we will resurrect an old favourite of the crypto scene: Dogecoin
When the Bitcoin White Paper was first published in 2008, very few people suspected that it would become a model for many other crypto currencies within a good five years. As one of the first so-called Altcoins Litecoin presented itself as “the silver to Bitcoins Gold”, others also oriented themselves on the Bitcoin blockchain and set up crypto projects. This veritable boom also called fun birds from the early crypto scene onto the scene, who wanted to take the entire ecosystem a little by the arm. For this purpose they founded their own crypto currency: Dogecoin.
“Much wow”
Dogecoin – short DOGE – was actually conceived as a pure parody of Bitcoin, Litecoin and the general hype, which seems almost ridiculous from today’s point of view. Since the coin, however, like all other listed crypto currencies, was freely tradable, krypton users soon began to trade it as well. So in no time he developed into one of those Altcoins to whom he was supposed to hold the mirror. Nevertheless, his special use case and some funny features made him stand out from the grey Altcoin crowd.
Dogecoin orientates himself on the aforementioned crypto currency Litecoin. Like this one, the coin uses the Proof of Work as a mining algorithm, although with the much faster block production time of one minute per block. The comic-like character of the crypto currency is underlined by the icon. Based on the Internet phenomenon Doge, which circulated at the time and gives its name to the crypto currency, a Shiba adorns the front of the coin. The Japanese dog breed was and is a popular motif for memes with captions like “Much…”. “Search …” or “Wow”. You can also gamble with dogecoin nowadys, for example at many dice games: http://www.bitcoindicegames.com/en/deposits/dogecoin
Why so serious?
After the new coin immediately enjoyed immense popularity, it belonged to the largest listed crypto currencies only a few weeks after its foundation in December 2013. Within just two weeks, DOGE was in 15th place on Coinmarketcap, after a good two months the Coin had made it into the Top 5 for the first time. The market capitalisation was more than 60 million US dollars. By mid-2016, the coin had actually managed to stay in the top 10. After that, however, it went rapidly downhill.
In January 2017 DOGE flew out of the top 15 for the first time again. This was less due to the declining popularity of the coin itself – Dogecoin’s market capitalisation remained largely constant over the course of the year – but rather to the overall development of the crypto market. Led by Bitcoin and Ethereum, the crypto business became increasingly mature and serious – no more room for a fun coin. In the age of DAOs and smart contracts, Dogecoin simply lacks the use case in order to continue to play a role – regardless of the hard core that remains loyal to the crypto currency.
Is there still a future for Dogecoin?
Already in February 2017 we asked the question: “Is the old dog still alive? Actually, the dog in question made some jumps afterwards. Thus the Coin succeeded once again to clearly outperform the old best mark in terms of market capitalization. At the beginning of January, at the record point of the crypto market, he even briefly broke the 2 billion US dollar barrier. In view of the market situation, however, it was only just under the top 30 coins. At the moment it still ranks in the top 50.
- On the other hand, Dogecoin will be a market player in the foreseeable future.
- The developer team around Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer has not carried out a system update for more than two years.
- Currently there are also no signs that this could change in the near future.
- The Dogecoin simply lacks the technological basis to offer users in the modern market an added value.
- It does not go beyond simply parodying the bit coin.
- So the coin will remain tradable – but it will probably not write any more crypto history. You can’t teach an old dog any new tricks.