The coin circle "Qi Yu" dog coin: due to a joke birth, the price of the founder quits after doubling

In the currency circle, the Dogecoin, born in 2013, is perhaps the best example of “community governance”.

It was born in a joke, because the expression pack quickly became popular, and it survived with the words such as tipping, charity, reward and grassroots culture.

The founder of the dog coin announced his withdrawal from the currency circle four years ago. But because of the strong community power, the dog and the dog cross the bulls and bears, becoming one of the few survivors of the early digital currency. Until today, it still has a large number of fans to support.

It seems that it has made the "decentralization" to the fullest. At the same time, however, its problems of manipulation and unclear prospects have begun to reflect on the shortcomings of the community governance model.

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01 Birth

In April 2019, dog coin coin founder Jackson Palmer emptied his Twitter account and YouTube videos and disappeared into the online world.

His departure has long been a sign. Two weeks before the "disappearance", he claimed that he had encountered too many imposters to swindle and swindle. He thought that these people were hostile to him, but he was innocent.

However, the market did not give much feedback on his "disappearance."

And four years ago, Palmer also announced that he had withdrawn from the currency circle. At that time, he had felt that the ecology of the dog-dog community was “toxic” and he did not want to participate anymore.

At that time, there were domestic investors who felt that the dog currency was about to return to zero. Surprisingly, however, the price of the dog currency has even doubled in the next two months.

Now, four years later, the dog currency has not only disappeared, but has become the only survivor of the early digital currency, except Bitcoin and Litecoin.

As a digital currency born in 2013, Doracoin has always been unique in the entire currency.

No technical highlights, no strong endorsement, no application landing, in the currency circle, some people joked that it is "three no products." Some people regard it as a typical "air coin."

The birth of the dog and dog coin is full of comedy color – it comes from a joke by its founder.

In 2013, a picture of the Japanese Shiba Inu "かぼす" became popular on the Internet. Netizens called it Doge and made countless expression packs.

It was also during this year that Bitcoin entered the bull market and digital currency began to be noticed by many people.

"It's time to make a new digital currency – Dogecoin." In December, faced with the popularity of Bitcoin and Doge, Adobe Australia marketing staff Palmer tweeted on Twitter.

This joke has actually won the support of many netizens. Soon, Palmer registered the domain name of Dogecoin.com and got a picture of a gold coin with a Doge expression.

Billy Markus was one of the first people to pay attention to dog bills. The American programmer always wanted to design a new digital currency, and the interesting design of the dog coin gave him inspiration. He became the first developer of the dog coin.

With his help, the dog's coin has become a reality from jokes. A digital currency full of comedy and self-contained traffic has since been born.

But at the technical level, the design of the dog currency is not brilliant. It has almost no technical innovations and highlights, and even the mining algorithm uses the Scrypt algorithm, a proven solution for Litecoin.

After the mining industry entered the ASIC era, Doraco coin introduced a “mixed mining” mechanism, which binds the Litecoin computing power. When the Litecoin miners are mining, they can get the dog’s coin as long as they package a piece of code at the same time. . This guarantees the network security of the dog currency, but it also completely loses the independence of the dog coin mining.

On December 6, 2013, the dog coin was officially launched. One day ago, the five central ministries and other ministries issued the "Notice on the Prevention of Bitcoin Risk", and Bitcoin began to fall from its peak. The dog's coin has risen against the trend. By mid-December, the dog's coin has risen by 300%.

In the currency circle, the dog currency has attracted a lot of attention. Mainstream media such as Bloomberg Businessweek and Business Insider have also begun to report on it. But when the craze dissipated, people found that the dog currency is still a "three no" air coin.

02 Community autonomy

The application scenario of dog currency is a "tip" that is prevalent in American culture.

In the dog coin official website, the official definition of dog currency is "fun and friendly network currency." "When you post, you can leave your dog currency address; when you see a good article, give the author a dog coin." A dog coin introduces the dog coin .

“Bitcoin is too expensive.” In the eyes of many dog-dog enthusiasts, the price has risen, which has become a disadvantage for Bitcoin – which means that people are more inclined to use Bitcoin to store value instead of reward or consumption.

Therefore, at the beginning of the dog's coin, a different distribution mechanism was established. It has a circulation of 100 billion pieces. Such a high circulation rate means that even if the market value of the dog currency reaches a certain volume, the unit price will still maintain a low number, thereby greatly reducing the psychological burden on the user.

In addition, the dog currency will be issued 5% per year to compensate for the market value reduction caused by the money, and maintain a certain inflation rate to encourage users to consume and use dog money.

Dog currency enthusiasts are indeed more keen to use Dogecoin as a trading tool rather than an investment target. According to a study released by Canadian digital money researcher Kevin Rooke in late 2018, the active address of Dogeco coin reached 70,000, second only to Bitcoin and Ethereum, ranking third in the digital currency. At the same time, the total market value of the dog currency has remained at around 30 for many years.

In fact, in addition to the early days of the game, the dog currency has not been considered a "star project". But it has an active community that many star projects can't match.

In 2013, Doge's image was hot on Reddit overnight. This "US version of Baidu Post Bar" gathers a large number of grassroots netizens, and is also the birthplace of many American online pop culture.

Interestingly, Reddit is also influential in the overseas currency. It not only won the Doge, but also gave birth to Dogecoin. Currently, Reddit's dog currency section has more than 130,000 members, second only to Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin.

Compared to the discussion forums in other currencies, the Reddit section of Dogecoin is more “big hodgepodge” – the flirtation between Doge's emoticons and netizens can be seen everywhere. In the digital currency community that is full of chasing, killing, and crying, the dog currency forum is particularly special.

In Reddit's dog coin section, some netizens will use NASA's LOGO PS into a Doge emoticon package.

“I am the holder of the dog currency and only hold this kind of digital currency.” More than one dog coin enthusiast wrote here. Obviously, they do not overlap with the mainstream users of the currency.

“As a representative of community governance, Doracoin has shown strong community vitality,” said a blockchain practitioner. “Even if the founder has been withdrawn for a long time, the dog currency is still alive, and this is entirely self-operating by the community. result."

However, decentralization of power to the community makes it difficult to know. In 2014, Palmer said that he refused to invest in two venture capital institutions.

“Dogcoin is an 'internet currency' and does not belong to any individual or entity. I hope it will become a charity project, and the dog-dog community will support this project to continue,” he said.

On the charity road, the dog's coin goes quite far. In 2014, the Dogecoin community sponsored several athletes from Jamaica and India to embark on the road to the Sochi Winter Olympics. Dog money has also contributed $30,000 to support Kenya in solving drinking water problems.

Leshan is good, so that the dog's coin is often a "cut amaranth" in the currency circle, and has won a rare good relationship.

On April Fool's Day, the official dog account was launched on Twitter to vote for the CEO of the dog, and Tesla CEO Musk was elected. Subsequently, Musk quoted the dog currency as his favorite digital currency and changed his Twitter account information to "pre-dog CEO".

03 Crisis and the future

However, under the vision of an active community and positive energy, dog money still hides a huge crisis.

Like most digital currencies, today's dog currency still has a large amount of currency value that is controlled by a few addresses. The BitInfoChart data shows that the Top 100 address of Dogecoin has more than 54% of the dog currency. The figure for Bitcoin is only 16%.

Compared with the United States, the popularity of dog currency in the country is always inferior to the mainstream currency. “The retail investors should never touch the 'dog currency', the 'dog currency' has Zhuang, and both are 'dogs'.” Zhang Hai, a domestic digital currency investor, said to a blockchain.

To support this point of view, it is the "bizarre rise" of dog money in history. Zhang Hai recalled that in 2017, dog money did not skyrocket with the mainstream currency in the big bull market. However, in the last month of 2017, a number of communities suddenly appeared in a group of voices calling for “dogs to buy dog ​​coins”, and the dog’s coin also rose.

"This wave of rally is very sudden, and it is also inexplicable," Zhang Hai said. Compared with other currencies, the "plate" of dog currency is not big, and the price increase is very scary. "In early January 2018, the price of the coin almost doubled every day."

Everything came to an abrupt end on January 8 and the dog's coin began to fall rapidly. The Lunar Year of the Lunar Year has not yet arrived, and the amaranths who are looking forward to the "dog year to buy dog ​​coins" have been harvested.

At the beginning of 2018, dog money skyrocketed and then plummeted

In the face of this sudden change, the loose community governance model of dog money seems to be powerless. The original community advantage became a disadvantage at this time.

In September 2018, the dog's coin once again ushered in a big test. At the beginning of September, the dog coin suddenly appeared unexplained, even in a day. At the same time, members of the community broke the news that a domestic MLM organization called Zhengzheng Group is calling on members to buy a lot of dog money.

It is reported that a fund project operated by “Zhengyu Group” is on the verge of collapse. In the face of a large number of members requesting cash withdrawals, the group said that investors can redeem the legal currency by purchasing a dog coin and recharging it to a designated exchange. For a time, the dog's coin was bought in large quantities and the price of the coin soared.

"In fact, this is the final value of the money-marketing discs in draining the leek." Someone commented.

This situation makes the investors of the dog currency very embarrassing. On the one hand, they have made a lot of money in the rise of the currency; on the other hand, the dog money has been nicknamed by the pyramid scheme.

“In China, dog currency has always been a very marginal currency.” Zhang Hai said, “Unlike American investors, many domestic investors actually want a coin to re-emerge as a leader and let the dog’s coin Revitalization, at least no longer become a bookmaker’s tool for collecting money."

However, as an old currency that started with a grassroots network culture, abandoned investment institutions, and hardly possesses any technical ingenuity, the dog currency may never have a new “leader”.

In 2015, the dog coin founder Palmer announced a high-profile exit. Prior to this, he had a number of battles with Alex Green, CEO of Moolah, the largest exchange for Dowager. Palmer said that he does not want too many differences to lead to the development of the dog currency community.

His exit decision may be correct. In 2016, Green was arrested by the British police for rape and sentenced to 11 years in prison. Since then, the British prosecutor has found that he was suspected of money laundering and theft of user assets while operating the Moolah exchange.

In announcing the withdrawal of the currency circle, Palmer also gave a view of the circle: "The whole industry is full of more and more white liberals, relying on some half-baked business concepts to collect money, and most of them will fail. They There are still many people who have anarchism, and I don't agree with it."

In 2019, Palmer’s disappearance in the online world left some eternal doubts for the world:

In the blockchain world where liberalism and anarchism prevail, how can a project's founders play their part? And what does the disappearance of the founders and the rise of community power mean for a blockchain project?

Both Bitcoin and Dogecoin are trying to answer this question.

Text | ratchet

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