No matter how silly something may appear to be, the human nature often surprises and defies logic. I was reading this article today and would like to take a minute to comment on it.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/01/remember-dogecoin-the-joke-currency-soared-to-2-billion-this-weekend/

What's With Dogecoin And The Dog?

"Doge" is our fun, friendly mascot! The Shiba Inu is a Japanese breed of dog that was popularized as an online meme and represents Dogecoin.

Dogecoin was created in 2013 as a joke, using a Shiba Inu meme. Back in those days, there weren't many cryptocurrencies around like the thousands that we have today. So Dogecoin may be considered as one of the early cryptos.

Is Dogecoin A Good Cryptocurrency?

Whenever Dogecoin is invoked in crypto discussions, there's always a chuckle in the room. I can't help but smile because the friendly face of DOGE comes to my mind, but on a serious side, I appreciate Dogecoin for several reasons:

• Simplicity
  No fuss, no mess. A cryptocurrency that does what it's intended to do.
• Functional Wallets
  There are two wallets to choose from: MultiDoge the light wallet (http://multidoge.org/), or the full Dogecoin Core wallet (http://dogecoin.com/). Of course, there are online wallets and exchanges where you can trade Dogecoin.
• Low Fees
  In MultiDoge, the fee is locked to 1 DOGE, but with the full wallet, the fee can be set to anything you want. Low fees are extremely important and beneficial to micro-transactions.
• Speed
  Whether you pay 1, 2 or 5 DOGE in fees, you get the same 6/6 confirmations within 2 minutes, maybe 5 minutes max on a busy hour.
• Unbloated Blockchain
  The full blockchain with all its small and big files is only taking 23 GB on my computer.
• High Supply
  Some may consider a high supply as detrimental to a coin's value (smaller supply = higher value). However, the supply doesn't matter much, but the market capital does because it represents the total value of a coin. Also, a high supply is practical: nobody likes to transact with silly decimals! Bitcoin, anyone?
  Considering today's prices, 1 BTC = $15000 and 1 DOGE = $0.015,
  $10 = 0.00066666 BTC = 666 DOGE

Those are important elements that define a good cryptocurrency which is practical, efficient, and that works. I have used Dogecoin many times, and was never disappointed with its performance. That's pretty impressive for a project that hasn't seen development in 18 months!

While other cryptos are struggling with scaling and scrambling to implement new solutions and features, the lack of development with Dogecoin does not equate with a lack of performance. The currency has been functioning well so far; if it isn't broke, don't fix it.

Current Market Standing

Dogecoin is ranked 31 with a market capital that surged over $2 billion this week and is sitting at $1.7 billion today. That's higher than STEEM's market cap! It shows that investors and believers aren't ready yet to let go of their DOGE. The coin has shot up 5x in a month.

Why Is Dogecoin Successful? Will It Last?

On top of the financial and technical points that I mentioned, Dogecoin's success may also be attributed to the gained momentum from some serious endeavors, such as community fund raisers for a bobsled team and water wells in developing countries, among other charitable initiatives (http://www.dogedoor.net/dogecoin-charities/).

What's interesting to note this year in particular, according to the Chinese zodiac, 2018 is Year of the Dog. It starts on 16 February 2018 and ends on 4 February 2019.

Dog is man's good friend who can understand the human's spirit and obey its master, whether he is wealthy or not. The Chinese regard it as an auspicious animal. If a dog happens to come to a house, it symbolizes the coming of fortune. The invincible God Erlang in Chinese legend used a loyal wolfhound to help him capture monsters.
_{https://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/social_customs/zodiac/dog.htm}

Without a doubt, China has become an economic super power to be respected. We have witnessed many times how Chinese decisions have impacted the crypto space in 2017, with massive price swings across the board. Simply put, China matters. Since the Chinese people have a strong attachment to their culture, I can only imagine the positive effects that the Chinese investors and users will bring to Dogecoin in 2018. Perhaps even take over the project development and do some improvements, who knows.

DOGE Giveaway

To kick start the year of the DOGE (I know, it hasn't officially started yet), I'm doing another DOGE giveaway. That last one I did was in my 2000 Followers Milestone post. More will come, keep following and reading my blog 😉

So, to celebrate prosperity, I'm giving away 1000 DOGE to the first 10 users who will do the following:

• Upvote and resteem this post.
• Write a meaningful comment why you think DOGE is cool or if you wish to share a dog story.
• Include your Dogecoin address in the comment
  Commenting with "Nice Post, I love DOGE. Here's my Dogecoin address. Gimme!" will not qualify.

Tha dawg is trading around $0.015 today
(it doubled since my last giveaway 3 weeks ago!)


That's a cool 10 x $15 = $150 giveaway.

If you don't have a Dogecoin wallet, I recommend you try MultiDoge. And please use a valid Dogecoin address, I won't re-send your giveaway if you provide a wrong address. You can validate it at http://dogetools.net/validate.php.

Results

The giveaway is complete, congratulations to the 10 recipients.
Don't waste your DOGE on pizza 🍕 like some people did with Bitcoin.

@khaled-dz and @sreepyeldarb missed their chance because they didn't upvote and/or resteem the post, as indicated in the rules. Better luck next time.

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DISCLAIMER: I'm not a financial nor a professional adviser. I formulate my opinions based on my research and interpretation of market news and chart analysis. If you're not a professional investor, please educate yourself before doing any market trading and don't risk more than you can afford to lose.

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