Honestly, if you were hanging around the internet in late 2013, you probably remember the "Doge" meme. It was everywhere. That side-eyeing Shiba Inu with the colorful Comic Sans internal monologue—"much wow," "so scare"—was basically the peak of internet humor. But while most of us were just laughing at a dog, two software engineers were about to turn that meme into a multi-billion dollar financial asset.
So, when did Dogecoin come out exactly?
It officially hit the scene on December 6, 2013.
It wasn't some grand, boardroom-planned financial revolution. Far from it. It was actually a middle finger to the self-serious, hyper-speculative world of early Bitcoin. Billy Markus, an IBM developer in Portland, and Jackson Palmer, an Adobe marketer in Sydney, didn't even meet in person before they launched it. They built the whole thing over chat because they thought the crypto world needed to lighten up.
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The Wild "Lunch Break" Birth of Dogecoin
You’ve gotta love the absurdity of it. Billy Markus has famously said he programmed the first version of Dogecoin during his lunch break. He didn't write the code from scratch. He basically took the source code for an existing coin called Luckycoin (which was itself a fork of Litecoin) and did a "find and replace."
He swapped "Bitcoin" for "Dogecoin." He changed "mining" to "digging." He even used Comic Sans for the UI. It was a parody. A literal joke.
Jackson Palmer had already bought the domain Dogecoin.com and put up a splash screen with the Shiba Inu logo. When Markus saw it, he reached out, and the two combined their powers to launch the network just a few days later. They didn't even "pre-mine" any coins for themselves. In the world of crypto, where "rug pulls" and "pre-mining" are common ways for founders to get rich, Dogecoin was remarkably honest. It was too much of a joke for anyone to think about getting rich.
Why 2013 Was the Perfect (and Weirdest) Time to Launch
Back in December 2013, the crypto landscape felt like the Wild West. Bitcoin was crashing from its then-staggering high of $1,000 down to about $600 after China banned banks from handling it. People were panicking.
Then came this dog.
Within two weeks of the Dogecoin release date, the coin’s value jumped 300%. Not because it was "better technology," but because the community was having a blast. While Bitcoiners were arguing about libertarian economics and block sizes, Dogecoin fans were "tipping" each other on Reddit.
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- Initial Price: $0.00026 per coin.
- Early Milestone: By January 2014, it briefly had more daily transaction volume than Bitcoin.
- The Hack: On Christmas Day 2013, a hacker stole millions of coins from the "Dogewallet." Instead of quitting, the community started "SaveDogemas" and donated enough coins to cover everyone's losses.
That generosity became the hallmark of the early "Doge Army." They weren't investors; they were fans of a weird digital clubhouse.
It Wasn’t Just About Memes: The Altcoin Boom
To really understand when Dogecoin came out, you have to look at the "Altcoin Summer" (which actually happened in the winter of 2013). Developers were cloning Bitcoin's code every day to create things like BBQCoin, Sexcoin, and Junkcoin. Most of these are dead now.
Dogecoin survived because it had a "fair launch." Everyone had the same chance to mine it from day one. It also used an algorithm called Scrypt, which meant you didn't need a $5,000 specialized mining rig to get some. You could just use your home computer.
The Infinite Supply Problem (or Feature?)
Unlike Bitcoin, which will only ever have 21 million coins, Dogecoin was designed to have 100 billion. Later, the cap was removed entirely. Today, 5 billion new Dogecoins are created every single year.
A lot of people think this makes it a "bad" investment. From a traditional scarcity perspective, they're right. But Palmer and Markus wanted it to be a currency, not "digital gold." They wanted it to be cheap so people would actually spend it and tip each other, rather than hoarding it like a dragon in a cave.
The Creators Walked Away (For $0)
Here is the part that usually shocks people. The guys who created Dogecoin aren't crypto billionaires.
In 2015, Billy Markus was laid off from his job. He sold all of his Dogecoin holdings to buy a used Honda Civic. If he had held onto those coins until the 2021 peak, they would have been worth nearly half a billion dollars.
Jackson Palmer left around the same time, citing the "toxic" culture that was starting to seep into the community as the price went up. He’s since become one of crypto’s biggest critics. It’s a strange legacy: the creators of one of the world's most famous financial assets basically want nothing to do with it.
What Really Happened in 2021?
While Dogecoin came out in 2013, it didn't become a household name until 2021. That was the year of Elon Musk, the "Dogefather," and the WallStreetBets era.
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Suddenly, the joke wasn't just on Reddit. It was on Saturday Night Live. It was being used to fund a SpaceX mission to the moon. The price hit an all-time high of roughly $0.73 in May 2021. For a moment, Dogecoin had a higher market cap than companies like Nintendo or Ford.
Is it still a joke? Kind of. But when billions of dollars are moving through a network every day, the joke starts to have real-world consequences.
Actionable Steps for the "Doge Curious"
If you're looking at Dogecoin now, more than a decade after it came out, you need to treat it differently than Bitcoin or Ethereum. Here is how to navigate the "Shiba" waters:
- Check the Inflation: Remember that Dogecoin is inflationary. 5 billion new coins enter the market every year. This means the price naturally wants to go down unless there is massive buying pressure to offset the new supply.
- Watch the "Whales": A very small number of wallets own a huge percentage of all Dogecoin. If one of those "whales" decides to sell, the price can tank in seconds.
- Community Over Utility: People don't buy Doge because it has smart contracts or high-speed sharding. They buy it because of the community and celebrity hype. If the "hype" dies, the value usually follows.
- Use It for Tipping: The best way to experience the original 2013 spirit is to actually use it. Find a creator you like who accepts DOGE and send them a few coins. That’s what it was built for.
Dogecoin’s history is a reminder that the internet doesn't always value what is "technically superior." Sometimes, it just values what makes us laugh. Whether it's a "scam" or the "people's currency" depends entirely on who you ask, but one thing is certain: that Shiba Inu isn't going away anytime soon.