– The first and biggest meme coin
Notably, Dogecoin has been embraced by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, who says DOGE is his favorite cryptocurrency.
Dogecoin is arguably the first meme coin, and it was created all the way back in December 2013 by Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer. Despite now commanding a market capitalization in the billions of dollars, Dogecoin was initially created as a joke and a parody of the extreme speculation that’s present in the cryptocurrency market.
The coin's name, "Dogecoin," is a tribute to the famous "doge" meme, and its branding is entirely based on the viral image of a Shiba Inu breed dog.
In terms of technology, Dogecoin is a fork of the Luckycoin cryptocurrency. Luckycoin is a fork of Litecoin, which is in itself a fork of Bitcoin. Essentially, this means that Dogecoin is quite similar to Bitcoin in terms of its technological foundations. Dogecoin's security is maintained via a Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism, and the coin is merge-mined alongside Litecoin.
In contrast to Bitcoin and Litecoin, which both limit the number of coins that can exist, DOGE's maximum supply has no upper limit. Every year, 5 billion new DOGE are introduced into circulation. Regardless, Dogecoin is still likely one of the best meme coins to buy, as it has demonstrated a lot of staying power over the last decade.
Notably, Dogecoin has been embraced by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, who says DOGE is his favorite cryptocurrency.
