Dogecoin (DOGE)

Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency that was created in December 2013 by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer. It was originally created as a joke, featuring the popular 'Doge' Shiba Inu meme as its mascot.

Despite its humorous origins, Dogecoin developed a passionate community and became known for charitable efforts and online tipping. The community has funded various causes, including sponsoring a NASCAR driver and supporting clean water initiatives.

Dogecoin gained mainstream attention in 2021 when celebrities like Elon Musk began tweeting about it, driving massive price increases. It remains one of the largest cryptocurrencies by market cap.

Unlike Bitcoin's 21 million cap, Dogecoin has no maximum supply. Approximately 5 billion new DOGE are created each year, making it an inflationary cryptocurrency.

Dogecoin is based on Litecoin's codebase and uses a proof-of-work consensus mechanism with the Scrypt hashing algorithm. This makes it merge-mineable with Litecoin.

Blocks are produced approximately every minute (compared to Bitcoin's 10 minutes), allowing for faster transaction confirmations. Transaction fees are typically very low.

The mining reward is fixed at 10,000 DOGE per block, resulting in about 5.2 billion new DOGE created annually. This inflation rate decreases over time as a percentage of total supply.

Dogecoin's technical simplicity and established network make it suitable for small transactions, tipping, and payments where fast confirmations and low fees are more important than advanced features.