An Unlikely Source of Inspiration
Dogecoin, and the Power of the Masses
So wow. Much excite. Very shibe. This broken language, the core of dogecoin, often confuses those oblivious to internet meme culture. When my friend first introduced me to this now popular alt-cryptocurrency in December of 2013, he called it “a fun bitcoin.” It was still in its early stages — /r/dogecoin only had 4,000 subscribers, compared to /r/bitcoin’s 170,000.
I quickly engrossed myself in this new world, scouring dogechat, a chat room that gave out small amounts of dogecoin for participating, learning about the process of mining, and reading blog posts about the iconic Shiba Inu dog whose face appears on the coin.
Following guides written by other users, I built my first computer last December with the specific purpose of mining dogecoin 24/7. Stripped down to the bare essentials, it ran off of a 16GB thumb drive, a 700W PSU, two 7850 GPUs, and a fan from Target.
I wish I could say my investment was profitable (one dogecoin is currently worth $0.00019, I mined about 550,000), but you can’t put a price on the perverse sense of satisfaction you feel when the piece of code you’ve found in the depths of the Internet finally works.
In March of 2014, Denis Pavel suggested funding Josh Wise, a stock car driver who competes in the Nascar Sprint Cup Series who wasn’t lucky enough to pick up a corporate sponsor. The idea took off — over 67 million dogecoin ($55,000) were raised to wrap his car with the dogecoin logo for one race. After placing 20th, Josh promised to race the dogecoin wrapped car at the All-Star Race if he won the online fan vote.
The community was buzzing — this was our chance to do some good for our mascot. Inspirational posters were created, videos of users voting hundreds of times in an hour were posted, and well, we kinda went overboard.
And after a few stressful weeks, to our surprise, Josh won the vote, beating out favorite Danica Patrick by over a million votes.
Any successful currency requires the collective backing of a community. If every store in the country stopped accepting the dollar, it would die — nobody wants to be the last guy holding colorful pieces of paper, now worthless instead of a winter coat or groceries. We place faith in our legal tender and our community every time we withdraw cash from an ATM or sell a TV on Craigslist. This trust has existed for centuries, where currency originated as deposit receipts from the goldsmith, who had the biggest vault in town. Instead of carrying around heavy bags of metal, people chose to carry the receipts instead.
I’m hard pressed to find this same faith anywhere else in our society. We’re constantly reminded of the injustices — whether it’s a friend griping about an unfair grade or the riots in Baltimore. It’s easy to fall prey to cynicism, to blame a bad grade on bad work and a bad decision on bad intentions. But, as silly as it may sound, a bunch of cryptocurrency nerds with way too much time on their hands have convinced me to see things a different way.
I spent my fair share of nights clicking away on the “Vote for Josh” button, and I've amassed hundreds of thousands of dogecoin. Both are direct appeals to irrationality, hopes that I’m not the only one with a callus on my trackpad finger or a computer whizzing away in the other room creating virtual money named after a dog. Some of my friends say dogecoin is crazy, and I can only agree. If my obsession has taught me anything, it’s that sometimes, you need a little crazy in order to do something great.
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