A cryptocurrency created as a parody is now worth more than $1 billion.

Dogecoin is an example of an altcoin.
Dogecoin was created by programmer Billy Markus from Portland, Oregon, who hoped to create a fun cryptocurrency that could reach a broader demographic than bitcoin. In addition, he wanted to distance it from the controversial history of other coins. At the same time, Jackson Palmer, a member of Adobe Systems' marketing department in Sydney, was encouraged on Twitter by a student at Front Range Community College to make the idea a reality.

Dogecoin, for its part, was created in 2013 and its mascot is a Japanese shiba inu dog popularized by an internet meme that dates back to 2010. The creators of dogecoin positioned the virtual token as "the internet currency" that can allow users to easily send money online.
Dogecoin was created as a parody, now it's worth more than $1 billion Dogecoin was created as a parody, now it's worth more than $1 billion
10:37 AM ET Fri, 5 Jan 2018 | 00:39
A cryptocurrency that was created as a parody and named after an internet meme now has a market value of more than $1 billion.

Data from CoinMarketCap showed dogecoin's current market value is about $1.17 billion — as of Jan. 5, 2:56 p.m. HK/SIN — and traded at $0.010360 per token.

Last month, the virtual coin rose more than 400 percent and briefly topped $0.0107 in late December.

Source: CoinMarketCap
Dogecoin is an example of an altcoin, which are peer-to-peer digital tokens that descended from bitcoin. The more popular ones include ethereum, which topped $1,000 for the first time on Thursday, and ripple, which saw a staggering 35,000 percent jump in its value last year.

Dogecoin, for its part, was created in 2013 and its mascot is a Japanese shiba inu dog popularized by an internet meme that dates back to 2010. The creators of dogecoin positioned the virtual token as "the internet currency" that can allow users to easily send money online.

There are several ways to get dogecoins: Users can buy them at online exchanges, get tipped in the cryptocurrency and even mine them.

The virtual currency's meteoric rise in recent months has the project's creator expressing concern about market excess. Jackson Palmer, the founder of dogecoin who left the team in 2015, told cryptocurrency news site CoinDesk that it was telling that the token saw such a sharp jump in price even when the project hadn't released a software update in over 2 years.
The total value of cryptocurrencies is over $750 billion, according to CoinMarketCap, and bitcoin dominates nearly 40 percent of that market.

NASCAR
On March 25, 2014, the Dogecoin community successfully raised 67.8 million Dogecoins (around $55,000 at the time) in an effort to sponsor NASCAR driver Josh Wise. Wise ran with a Dogecoin/Reddit-sponsored paint scheme at the Aaron's 499 at Talladega Superspeedway. On May 4, 2014, Wise and his car were featured for nearly a minute, during which the race commentators discussed Dogecoin and the crowdfunding effort, while finishing twentieth and narrowly avoiding multiple wrecks. On May 16, 2014, Wise won a spot at the Sprint All-Star Race through an online fan vote beating household name Danica Patrick, largely due to the efforts of the Dogecoin Reddit community. He finished the race in fifteenth, the last car running. The following race in the Coca-Cola 600, Wise debuted a Dogecoin/Reddit.com helmet. Wise later announced he would run the car again at the Toyota/Save Mart 350[41] as a thank-you gift to the community and the GEICO 500. He finished twenty-eighth in the race due in part to a refueling issue; he was in twelfth place after a gas-and-go pit stop, but the gas can did not engage long enough, resulting in a second pit stop that took him towards the back of the pack. The developer of the NASCAR '14 video game announced that they are looking into adding the Dogecoin car as a drivable car in an upcoming DLC.

A cryptocurrency created as a parody is now worth more than $1 billion
Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency created as a parody after a popular internet meme, now has a market cap of more than $1.1 billion
The rise of Dogecoin and other bitcoin descendants is due to the fact that they're perceived as being "cheap" compared to bitcoin or ether, according to Dave Chapman from Octagon Strategy
One of the Dogecoin founders told a cryptocurrency news site that the token's rise makes him worry about market excess.