Thread by @businessbarista

Dogecoin is up 12,025% year-to-date.

It's currently the 4th largest cryptocurrency in the world with a $78 billion market cap.

But few actually know the backstory on the meme-inspired coin that's had a record run.

Here's your history lesson....

It all started in 2013.

Jackson Palmer, a PM at Adobe, tweeted as a joke "Investing in dogecoin, pretty sure it's the next big thing."

At the same time, Billy Markus, a software Developer at IBM, had a similar idea.

Markus had been trying to create his own humorous crypto, called Bells, based on the video game "Animal Crossing."

The initial response to Bells was awful, but Markus still wanted to find a use for his code.

Enter Jackson Palmer & Dogecoin.

Billy Markus caught wind of the Shiba Inu-inspired Dogecoin and called it "the greatest idea ever."

He reached out to Jackson Palmer to see if he wanted to make Dogecoin more than an internet meme.

Palmer obliged & Markus reconfigured his code for Bells to fit Doge.

On Dec 6, 2013, Palmer & Markus launched Dogecoin.

Some properties:

• Codebase is derived from Litecoin, a variant almost identical to Bitcoin
• Moved from random reward for mining to static reward in March 2014
• Inflationary coin: no limit to number of coins produced

Dogecoin instantly became a hit on Reddit generating an $8 million market cap.

r/dogecoin was formed and users began tipping each other with Doge for funny comments.

This 1.6 million-person community is such a big part of Dogecoin's meteoric rise.

But so is @elonmusk.

On Apr 2, 2019, Dogecoin ran a Twitter poll to crown a CEO.

Elon won the poll. Here's how he responded...

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1113009339743100929?s=20

Skip to 2021.

"The People vs. Wall Street" heats up as Robinhood & others restrict orders on GameStop stock.

Same day, Elon is back showing his support for "The People" by promoting Dogecoin.

The coin jumped from $0.007 to $0.05 after this tweet...

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1354924057825837060

For the next week, Elon kept the party going with tweets that racked up nearly 1.6m likes.

His "People's Crypto" tweet here:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1357241340313141249?s=20

And Lion King tweet here:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1357236825589432322?s=20

By 6:50pm ET on Feb 7, Dogecoin hit $0.08.

Which brings us to today.

Doge just hit an all-time high at $0.69 bringing its market cap to $78.6 billion.

🤯

A coin, which began as a Shiba Inu-inspired meme to poke fun at crypto is the 4th largest crypto in the world.

1. Bitcoin
2. Ethereum
3. Binance Coin
4. Dogecoin

As for Palmer & Markus, the coin's creators, neither is involved in Dogecoin anymore.

Palmer left the community in 2015 citing a "toxic community."

Markus also left the community in 2015 for similar reasons & proceeded to sell all of his crypto to buy a used Honda Civic.

And in case you're wondering, no, they are not crypto millionaires.

Typically, crypto founders make money by premining the currency before public launch.

They didn't do this because they thought Dogecoin was a joke at first.

What a truly absurd story, right?

A digital currency that started as a meme inspired by a Shiba-Inu.

Is now worth more than Nintendo, BMW, Adidas, and all of these companies...

https://twitter.com/JoePompliano/status/1389580833103749120?s=20

And its founders walk away with nothing.

But as absurd as Dogecoin is, there are 3 great lessons we can learn from it:

1) Don't underestimate the power of influence

2) Don't underestimate the power of community

3) Human beings are programmed to think short-term

Lesson 1: Don't underestimate the power of influence

The internet created a foundation for humans to be connected & social media enabled individuals to build audience.

With 52.9m followers, @elonmusk has a greater impact on Dogecoin's rise than any institution possibly could.

Lesson 2: Don't underestimate the power of community

Dogecoin has an obsessive community.

Here are the stats on r/dogecoin:

• 1,685,521 subscribers
• 260th largest subreddit
• 17,409 posts per day
• 82,961 comments per day

Lesson 3: Human beings think short-term

Dogecoin is FAR from perfect.
• It's inflationary
• It's volatile AF
• It's technology hasn't seen a major upgrade since 2014

But the coin allows you to participate in a movement that has quickly turned people into Doge-millionaires.

That's the story of Dogecoin!

If you enjoyed this thread, make sure to follow me @businessbarista.

I tweet about building a business & the stories of fascinating businesses.