Yet, since its creation, the cryptocurrency’s popularity and value has skyrocketed. A massive online community has developed over the years with many loyal fans of the coin. The community has done some incredible things with Dogecoin, from utilizing the cryptocurrency to raise funds for the Jamaican bobsled team to go to the Sochi Winter Olympics to funding a project to build a well in rural Kenya to provide access to drinking water.

Recently, Dogecoin has reached over $1 billion in capitalization. Despite its tongue-in-cheek beginning, Dogecoin is literally going to the Moon—no, really. Thanks to crowdfunding efforts, a gold coin representing the cryptocurrency is scheduled to reach the moon’s surface in 2019.

Dogecoin is based on Litecoin, which means all changes and updates made to Litecoin will also apply to Dogecoin.

Dogecoin never set out to create any groundbreaking technology on the blockchain or do anything fancy and new—it’s just a simple cryptocurrency transaction platform, with a dog slapped on its face.

Dogecoin has stayed low in value with very small transaction fees, allowing it to be a cryptocurrency that people actually use, instead of just hold on to as an investment. Dogecoin has become the most popular coin to tip people over the internet in appreciation for their content.

Let’s say a person wants to send 10 cents to someone for their helpful comment on Reddit, for example. In Bitcoin, that’s currently 0.000006 BTC. But 10 cents translates to 6.02 DOGE, a much easier conversion rate. Plus, the transaction will be much faster and cheaper than BTC. For this reason, Dogecoin has become the most popular coin to use for rewarding others quickly and easily. It’s a common occurence to see Reddit and Twitter users tipping each other small amounts of DOGE for entertaining content.

Another thing that sets Dogecoin apart from other coins is their friendly, open, and huge community. The Dogecoin subreddit boasts almost 100,000 subscribers that enjoy tipping each other in DOGE. The community (they call themselves “shibes”) is generally very positive, friendly, and welcoming.

Just take a look at this recent popular post, where user change1378 writes...

User Redz0ne agrees, adding, “The doge meme makes people smile. This should be the aim of dogecoin as well.”

The Dogecoin community actually founded a nonprofit organization called The Dogecoin Foundation. Their goal is “to facilitate the use of Dogecoin through goodwill, promotional and charitable endeavors.”

The first cause they raised funds for was in January 2014, when the Dogecoin community managed to successfully raise $50,000 in DOGE for the Jamaican bobsled team, which had qualified for, but could not afford to go to, the Sochi Winter Olympics. Thanks to Dogecoin, the team was able to compete in the Olympics that year.

Inspired by the fundraising success, The Dogecoin Foundation began collecting donations to build a well in the Tana river basin in Kenya, in cooperation with the nonprofit organization Charity: Water. They hit their goal of 40 million DOGE ($30,000 at the time), collected from more than 4,000 donors.

On March 25, 2014, the Dogecoin community successfully raised 67.8 million DOGE (around $55,000) in an effort to sponsor NASCAR driver Josh Wise. He participated in several races with his car decorated in a Dogecoin/Reddit-sponsored paint scheme.

The Dogecoin community even managed to raise enough funds to send a physical representation of a Dogecoin to the actual Moon, set to occur in 2019. Yes, Dogecoin is literally going to the Moon.

We can surely expect the Dogecoin community to continue to raise more funds for worthy causes (and for some funny causes, as well) in the future.