Dogecoin, the # 14 cryptocurrency by market capitalization, recently soared 300% in 24 hours after a pump organized by the Reddit /WallStretBets community and powered by Elon Musk.
Born for fun in 2013, Dogecoin is a crypto in its own right - it has its own blockchain that uses the Proof of Work protocol, also known as PoW, and is based on Litecoin’s Scrypt technology.
Like other cryptocurrencies, Dogecoin is a decentralized, open source, and peer-to-peer digital currency that makes it easy to send money online. What characterizes it is its community, which over the years has proven to be an important part of the project.
According to the official website, the Dogecoin meme cryptocurrency is primarily used to “tip” other internet users, who create or share great content. A kind of “like” or a more significant up vote, with a real value that can be used throughout the network.
Also, by way of trivia, his name, ‘Doge’, is inspired by a Japanese breed of dog, the Shiba Inu, which has become popular as an online meme and as a Dogecoin pet.
How many DOGE’s are there?: Dogecoin mining and circulation supply
To understand how many Dogecoins there are, it is common to refer to the Dogecoin blockchain mining system that generates and distributes DOGE.
In practice, in exchange for miners processing and confirming transactions, the network issues and assigns new DOGEs to the corresponding miner.
At the moment, there are more than 128 billion Dogecoin in circulation and it appears that an upper limit has not been implemented, unlike Bitcoin, which has a limit of 21 million issued coins in its circulating supply.
Initially, however, the decision had been to have a supply limit of 100 billion coins, which would have already been much more than what the main digital currencies allowed.
However, in February 2014, Dogecoin founder Jackson Palmer announced that the cap would be removed in an attempt to create a steady reduction in its inflation rate over time.
The issue of having no limit on supply has been a source of debate on the very issue of inflation and deflation in the cryptocurrency meme.
