Dogecoin

Dogecoin is one of the most well-known altcoins in the market. Its history is as amusing as its moniker. Initially started as a joke currency based on its resemblance to the “Doge” internet meme, it immediately developed and achieved its own online community, reaching a capitalization of $60 million by January of 2014. It eventually declined to $20 million by December of 2014.

Initiated by two strangers from different parts of the world – Jackson Palmer from Sydney, Australia and Billy Markus from Portland, USA – Dogecoin was launched on December 8, 2013. The network originally intended to generate 100 billion dogecoins, but it was later announced that the Dogecoin network would produce infinite supply, making it one of the inflationary coins, in contrast to the deflationary cryptocurrencies like bitcoins.

Dogecoin is now the fifth biggest cryptocurrency with a market cap of $43.1 million as of late 2014. The current production schedule states that about 98 billion coins will be released by January 2015. Thus, about 5.256 billion of coins will be created every year for the rest of time, posing an inflation rate of 5.256%, also in 2015. This will, however, decrease as time progresses, approximately plunging down to 2.5% by 2035.

Whether the infinite production should be changed or not was the subject of discussion by Dogecoin’s developers from December 2013 to January 2014. However, founder Jackson Palmer announced the following month that no changes will be imposed.

Like Bitcoin and Litecoin, Dogecoin also works by using public-key cryptography, in which users can create a pair of cryptographic keys – one is public and the other one is private. The former is the Dogecoin address that one can use in sending and receiving dogecoins, while the latter enables complete access to the Dogecoin wallet, thus, it must be concealed with great caution.