The contemporary times are strange. A dog which stops itsowner’s kissing attempts becomes a world-famous thing, a meme - Doge. Fair enough, many peoplelove dogs; and Shiba Inu’s spirited personality, small upright ears, andcat-like agility give the breed acharacteristic charm.
While Doge continues to multiply on the Internet, a new financialtechnology is gradually holding root. Cryptocurrency – based on a technologycalled public blockchain – is the form of pioneer Bitcoin is released into theworld.
Bitcoin has been designed with the express purpose of beingdecentralised and thus not under the control of any central bank. Bitcoin hasseen huge unbelievable profits and likewise massive declines also.
The gold rush of cryptocurrencies led to a proliferation ofimitations. Most of these imitations were created with the express intention ofbeing a bonafide currency, just like Bitcoin.
However, there was another class of cryptocurrencies whichonly had the purpose of parodying the phenomena of cryptocurrencies. Thecreators of these meant these to be just for a few laughs.
In November 2013, a product manager at Adobe named JacksonPalmer tweeted a made-up currency called Dogecoin. Yes, cryptocurrencytechnology plus the Doge meme equals Dogecoin.
Dogecoin is not a share or stock of a company.
The joke was especially attractive to novice traders as itsticket price was low as compared to the established ones like Bitcoin. The communityof Dogecoin investors and traders made a thriving ecosystem, though still muchless than Bitcoin, and attracted a con artist who swindled around $2 to $4million, and this heavily downscaled the activity in Dogecoin.
However, things began to look up big-time for Dogecoin whenBitcoin and other cryptocurrencies began their upmove, and small participantswere looking for a lower ticket price cryptocurrency.
Also, being smaller capitalised would have enabled a higherpercentage gain in the lesser ticket price ones like Dogecoin.
Then came Elon Musk and referring himself to as theDogefather in a Saturday Night Live sketch and before that his tweets regardingthis cryptocurrency. What investors and traders might end up doing is hurting themselvesfollowing the charm of a visionary businessman and their greed and fear ofmissing out (FOMO).