The origin of the Doge: Everything a Shiba should know about the meme that made billions

Although Dogecoin started off as a joke, the Shiba Inu based cryptocurrency has grown into a fully fledged peer to peer digital currency with a worldwide fan base of Shiba Inus. According to knowyourmeme.com, Doge is actually a slang for “dog” and its use of a misspelled word (d-o-g-e) actually dates way back even before Bitcoin came to fruition.

Where did the word Doge come from?

The first time the word ‘doge’ was used online was in June 2005 after it was mentioned in an episode of Homestar Runners (a long-running web-based puppet show based on a children’s book). In the episode, ‘Biz Cas’ distracts ‘Strong Bad’ from completing his third-quarter projection analysis spreadsheet project when he comes into the room and calls him his “Doge”.

Later in 2010, a Japanese kindergarten teacher posted a photo of a Shiba Inu dog she had rescued and adopted. The same photo was identified as the origin of the Dogecoin meme that later got popular online to become the mascot for the Dogecoin.

Dogecoin: focusing on charity and community

As you can see, Dogecoin was mostly created as a shits and giggles cryptocurrency that was meant to attract any lighthearted individual looking to have fun while donating to charity projects using cryptocurrency. However, in 2013, Dogecoin’s vision became pretty clear and what started out as a silly endeavor has over time turned into a serious project that is being used as internet money.

Dogecoin was built to be a community-driven cryptocurrency and the meme really helped spread the word about what Dogecoin was all about. In fact, it is this popularity that enabled the Dogecoin community to fund some worthy charity projects. These included a donation to Kenya’s water crisis back in 2014 and another partnership with a charity organization dubbed “Shibes for socks” to mention but a few.

Beware of scammers

Basically, even though some crypto enthusiasts have criticized Dogecoin for its lack of a clear technological standpoint, the coin has been the friendliest altcoin for beginners as it’s easy to use and requires zero technical know-how to understand its purpose. Plus the Dogecoin community is made up of individuals whose main purpose is to only do good as indicated on the Dogecoin Reddit page.

But let’s face it, Dogecoin’s journey has not all been smooth sailing. The coin has seen its own fair share of controversy. For instance, as more and more good intentional people have thrown money towards charity projects using the parody coin, the value of  Dogecoin ( in the hundreds of millions) now has become like a drop of blood in the ocean that has attracted sharks in the form of a bunch of scammers. There have been constant reports of scammers taking advantage of the Dogecoin community sometimes even getting away with millions. The good news is that the Dogecoin community (especially on Reddit) has been really supportive of its members, to extent of donating some Dogecoin to those who had fallen victim to the scammers.

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Disclaimer: This article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide, investment advice. Global Coin Report and/or its affiliates, employees, writers, and subcontractors are cryptocurrency investors and from time to time may or may not have holdings in some of the coins or tokens they cover. Please conduct your own thorough research before investing in any cryptocurrency and read our full disclaimer.

Image courtesy of iamhenry via Flickr

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