What is Dogecoin, how to buy in India and why the Elon Musk-supported crypto is no more a mere ‘joke’

Created in 2013 by software engineers Jackson Palmer and Billy Markus, Dogecoin was intended to make fun of all the crypto craze that time led by Bitcoin. (Image: Bloomberg)

What started as a satirical alternative to Bitcoin, cryptocurrency Dogecoin has been on fire of late following multiple cryptic tweets by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk in the past few weeks indicating his support to the most trending altcoin. The latest one was on Thursday that pushed Dogecoin’s price up by 200 per cent from $0.13 to $0.39 on Saturday. Musk retitled a 1926 ‘Dog Barking at the Moon’ painting by Spanish artist Joan Miro to ‘Doge’ Barking at the Moon. On April 18 morning, Musk tweeted an image of a dust storm with a Shiba Inu dog face as ‘dogecoin standard’ blowing over the ‘global financial system’. Musk called it ‘inevitable’.

While Dogecoin’s size is nowhere near Bitcoin, the ‘joke’ currency’s market cap has been catapulted from over $1 billion during early January to $47 billion on Saturday, as per CoinMarketCap. Created in 2013 by software engineers Jackson Palmer and Billy Markus, Dogecoin was intended to make fun of all the crypto craze that time led by Bitcoin. The currency took its name and logo from a famous 2013 meme called Doge that featured the image of the Japanese dog breed Shiba Inu accompanied by multicolored text that represented some sort of inner monologue by the dog. Despite years after the meme was created, Dogecoin continued to be traded and recently gained traction following Musk’s tweets. “Dogecoin is the people’s crypto,” Musk had tweeted on February 4, 2021.

Also read: Bitcoin is a bubble for majority fund managers globally: Bank of America survey

The open-source and peer-to-peer crypto Dogecoin has been used largely to reward “on Reddit and Twitter to reward the creation or sharing of quality content,” according to CoinMarketCap. Users can get it as a tip by participating in a community that uses digital currency. Investors can buy or sell Dogecoin at any exchange that offers the digital currency, store it on an exchange or in a Dogecoin wallet. Unlike Bitcoin, the Dogecoin supply is uncapped, which means that is no limit to the number of Dogecoin that can be mined. One can mine Dogecoin on Windows, Mac, or Linux. Crypto investors in India can set up their accounts on any of the Dogecoin-supporting crypto exchanges such as WazirX, BuyUcoin, etc. For instance, on BuyUcoin, investors can choose from available platforms OTC, BuyUcoin EZ, Classic Trading and buy Dogecoin using debit or credit card, bank transfer, e-wallets, BHIM, or IMPS transfer.