Dogecoin has gained record value this week and went up to the top fourth position.

Dogecoin is in limelight for quite some time now. The crypto investors are taking a big interest in the cryptocurrency, which has eventually led to the snowballing of its price. Remarkably, Dogecoin is briefly overtaking Bitcoin in its popularity on social media and among crypto enthusiasts. The digital currency's price has surged to an all-time high of US$0.4 recently pumping up enthusiasm. But like many other cryptocurrencies, the value of Dogecoin is also volatile. Just a week after making record high value, the price fell drastically. Henceforth, investors need to know about a cryptocurrency's background, its way of functioning, its market state, and who are rooting for it before investing in it. In this article, we tell you how Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency that was born out of memes and jokes made it to the top four.

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What is Dogecoin and why is it unique?

In 2013, software engineers Billy Marcus and Jackson Palmer created Dogecoin. The cryptocurrency took inspiration from jokes and memes that emerged at the time. The word 'doge' was dramatically misspelled to describe Shina Inu dog. Later, the joke went viral and Palmer got the idea to use it as his cryptocurrency's logo. Just a couple of years ago, Dogecoin was very low on value and was also seen as a poker of Bitcoin. But today, the scenario has changed. Over the past few months, digital currency is gaining popularity among crypto investors, thanks to Elon Musk and Jordan Belford for all the hype they created. Elon Musk has been very vocal about cryptocurrencies on Twitter and SNL, especially; he paid special importance to Bitcoin and Dogecoin.

Unlike many cryptocurrencies, Dogecoin functions on blockchain technology, which makes it secure. The digital currency was created as a fork of now-obsolete Luckycoin, which was itself a fork of Litecoin, which was forked out of Bitcoin. Henceforth, Dogecoin was created on random block rewards built into its blockchain technology and that would disincentivize miners from creating more of the cryptocurrency. Crypto investors feel secure to invest in digital currency power by blockchain technology as they use a decentralized model. The Dogecoin users have an identical copy of the Dogecoin blockchain ledger that is frequently updated based on their transactions. Dogecoin grew slowly over the past few years. The founders took the step-by-step initiative to streamline it. Initially, the cryptocurrency supply was designed to be infinite. In 2014, the founders said that Dogecoin will create 100 billion supply and 5 billion new coins every year. In the early days, crypto enthusiasts even arranged a publicity program to make Dogecoin popular. They gathered funds to send the Jamaican Bobsleigh team to the 2014 Olympics and sponsored a NASCAR driver. But despite all the efforts, Dogecoin's profile stayed low.

Only in 2021, Dogecoin became the center of attraction for cryptocurrency investors. Today, the digital currency has cult status on Reddit's WallStreetBets message board. Since the beginning of this year, Dogecoin's price has gone up by around 5000%. Elon Musk has called Dogecoin the 'People's crypto.'

Where is Dogecoin today?

As of today, Dogecoin's price is at US$0.435 falling around 45% from its recent high. The drastic plummet was due to uncertainty and China's crackdown on crypto trading. People's Bank of China has recently reiterated that digital tokens can't be used as a form of payment added to the selloff. The country has banned financial institutions and payment companies from providing services related to cryptocurrency transactions and warned investors against speculative crypto trading. This has not gone well on Dogecoin. Cryptocurrency experts predict that Dogecoin might go the same way as XRP. XRP suddenly climbed the ladder to top cryptocurrency position, but within a very short time, it came down again.