Co-founder of Dogecoin, Billy Markus, who is no longer involved with the project but remains an active member of the community, recently questioned the funding and productivity of the leading meme coin’s development.
Billy Markus Goes Off On DOGE Community
It all started when one user on the X (formerly Twitter) platform asked whether Dogecoin had endorsed a decentralized exchange (DEX) that channelled about 50% of its fees toward the individuals running the official Dogecoin account.
In response, Billy Markus, better known in the cryptoverse as Shibetoshi Nakamoto, pointed out the challenge of funding Dogecoin’s development considering that there was no pre-mine or presale like was the case for other cryptocurrencies. He revealed that the community had donated a mere $40,000 over the course of 10 years, with a large chunk of these contributions happening within the first six months.
“What does the [DOGE] community actually want anyway? Billy asked. “I never really see it do anything productive at all, ever — I personally don’t see why anyone would ever develop on the product or spend any time on it for this community unless they enjoy pain and stress.”
Jackson Palmer and Billy Markus created Dogecoin in 2013 as a joke based on the “Doge” meme, which depicts a Shiba Inu dog. The pair didn’t intend for the canine-themed crypto to be taken seriously.
But DOGE took off and is currently one of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. The coin has come a long way since 2013, briefly hitting an all-time high of almost 74 cents in May 2021. Despite its surge in popularity, Markus and Palmer did not profit, as they both dumped their DOGE holdings before its stratospheric rise to the peak.
Markus also highlighted the community’s toxicity towards the Dogecoin Foundation, observing that the nonprofit’s announcements are never met with any positivity.
“Any time the foundation has said anything, it’s been met with relentless attacks, so they stopped, which is logical when there’s no point in trying to communicate with hostile people who don’t listen to anything but their own circlejerk.”
The Elon Musk Factor
SpaceX CEO — and the world’s richest man— Elon Musk, started pumping Dogecoin on X in 2020 by sharing memes, and it in turn skyrocketed in value and acquired a cult following. His EV maker, Tesla, also accepts the meme coin. Tesla has, however, never disclosed whether any of its customers have utilized DOGE or, if they have, how much it’s received.
Most in the crypto community suspect Musk’s X could soon accept DOGE tokens in the coming months, given the billionaire’s affinity for the meme cryptocurrency.
CoinGecko data shows DOGE is trading hands for $0.0579 at the time of writing, a 0.6% dip over the past 24 hours.
