6 ms·

Ok, help me out here: Dogecoin's first block was mined on 2013-12-06 and now the richest account has $846,935 USD. Is it really that easy? Could I start an aar

by aarondf 13y ago

Ok, help me out here: Dogecoin's first block was mined on 2013-12-06 and now the richest account has $846,935 USD. Is it really that easy? Could I start an aarondfcoin? Is it all about getting the network effect to make a non-backed (fiat) currency actually worth something? I was just so shocked to see that Dogecoin was actually worth anything.

chunkstuntman 13y ago
Good luck getting aarondfcoin to gain any sort of traction or following. If you can convince a committed and numerous group to believe in anything, it will be worth something.
- jsilence 13y ago
  If a local group decided to start their on local currency, just like a couple of groups do (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_currency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_currency), then using a bitcoin like system might make sense for them.
  - robmcm 13y ago
    Like a hacker news coin?
    - jackgavigan 13y ago
      YCoin.
      - robmcm 13y ago
        y combinator should do it, then they can pay all their startups in YCoins!
        X4 13y ago
        I'm in :) that would YRock!
      - finishingmove 13y ago
        YCoin? BecauseCoin.
superuser2 13y ago
That doesn't mean anyone would actually buy $846,935 of Dogecoin at once.
- GigabyteCoin 13y ago
  According to coinmarketcap.com there was about $875K USD of trading done yesterday. If you premined the coin you could theoretically cash out about half of that value, and the minute after the coin would be dead.
Psyonic 13y ago
Sure you can start aarondfcoin: http://www.coingen.io/ http://www.coingen.io/.
- wielebny 13y ago
  Keep in mind that this generator uses premined genesis block - the same for all currencies. Creating new one, with unique genesis block, with adjusted difficulty can take some time.
  - ubercow13 13y ago
    What's the downside to having a reused genesis block?
    - wielebny 13y ago
      By mining your own genesis block, you can adjust starting difficulty. If the difficulty is set too low, then first miners will mine enormously more blocks, before the difficulty readjusts.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
msgilligan 13y ago
You can go out and make aarondfcoin just like you can go out and make a viral video.
Smegger 13y ago
Dogecoins is worth something in the same way that oversized obviously fake bills from party supply stores are worth money; you have to pay to get them but after that they are less valuable then monopoly money. the only reason people want them is to be in on the joke some they can give each other thousands of of fake dollars for nothing.
Houshalter 13y ago
I can't explain why dogecoin is worth so much, probably just crazy speculators (after all, the only market is people using it as a joke/meme, no one is ever going to spend significant amounts of money on it - I hope.) But yes you can create your own cryptocurrency and make a lot of money off of it. This is a good and a bad thing. Good because it should create competition to make better cryptocurrencies. It also helps build the currency as all the miners invest resources in it and get exposed to the currency and have an incentive to try to get others to use it. Bad because, well that money is coming from somewhere, and the users of the cryptocurrency are essentially paying a tax to the miners for not really contributing anything of value.
- jey 13y ago
  Except it's conceivable that having virality baked into it (e.g. being a "joke/meme") could actually help its adoption move much faster than it otherwise would. And once you have a cryptocurrency that has a lot of buy-in, why not use it for real transactions? I'm not ready to say DOGE will win the cryptocurrency wars, but it certainly wouldn't the first time that a "joke" or "hack" turned into something real and lasting.
KVFinn 13y ago
When those people mined it it wasn't worth anything. It was a surprise to pretty much everyone that a joke became a real coin. Now that people are trying to copy dogecoin it's going to be a lot harder to have that slow ramp.
thomasnno 13y ago
The currency (and the meme it is "based on") is somewhat attractive, its silly image made me laugh, and mine for a few days, getting 120 000 or so Doge. If enough people think it funny enough to use, and of low enough value to actually use instead of just hold, it may have a future as a low value tipping currency. Your aarondfcoin lacks that funny easygoing silly meme power, I belive.
natmaster 13y ago
People have tried to copy the success, but has failed horribly. Dogecoin is special because it was first, and the early community built a loving friendly place. People like friendly doges.
- unreal37 13y ago
  What was DOGE first at? People love it because it started as a joke that they themselves were in on. And then the joke became real.
rallison 13y ago
The short answer is yes. The longer answer is that you also need virality. There are multiple coins released every day [1]. Most of these coins go nowhere. Why are so many coins released? Quite simply, most coins are forks of Bitcoin/Litecoin/etc with minor tweaks. Occasionally, you get a truly new coin based on something new, but most simply tweak the coins per block, the difficulty re-targeting rate, the starting difficulty, the block time, etc. Coingen.io exemplifies how simple this is. Of course, there are exceptions, such as the upcoming Etherium [2], the first Turing complete cryptocurrency (as far as I know, at least). Despite that, most coins basically fail. Sure, they receive hashing power, and some even get onto exchanges. Most of them, however, don't really go anywhere. So, yes, it is relatively easy to create and launch a coin. It is a bit harder to launch a coin that makes it to an exchange. It is harder still to make one that also sticks around and stays in the public consciousness (such as dogecoin). Finally, let's say you have a great idea for a new coin. The way some people previously got rich by creating a new coin was to premine the coin. Basically, one would mine the first x number of blocks, before releasing it. This still happens, but is now much more often frowned upon. So, to get rich off of creating a coin, you basically would need to premine a coin, and convince others that you had a good reason to premine it [3]. This absolutely still happens, but is becoming tougher to pull off. So yes, you could create aarondfcoin. Yes, you could probably release it and get hashing power thrown at it. But, would you make money doing so? Well, that requires a bit more effort. Keep in mind that there are hundreds of attempted alt currencies for every dogecoin success. That said, yes, there is still room for success here, but it usually requires more than just creating aarondfcoin. The virality aspect is the more important aspect, at the moment. [1] See the bitcointalk announcement forum https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=159.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=159.0 [2] http://ethereum.org/ http://ethereum.org/ and the whitepaper: http://ethereum.org/ethereum.html http://ethereum.org/ethereum.html [3] Yes, there are a still a number of ways to make money off of releasing a coin that doesn't involve premining (or appears not to involve premining), but that is a topic worthy of its own thread.
- rms 13y ago
  Whoa, ethereum. What kind of setup do I want to start mining ether from the start?
krakensden 13y ago
It's nominally worth $850k, but I am skeptical you could find someone to take the other side of that trade. Dogecoin is like any other currency. The things that make it useful are belief and people willing to exchange things for it. It's unlike other currencies in that mostly the things being exchanged are electronic and not worth meatspacecoin. There is, of course, no reason it has to stay that way.
- tphyahoo 13y ago
  Dogecoin has a daily volume of almost 1M USD. coinmarketcap.com It's fairly liquid. You absolutely could cash out. Probably over several days, so you don't move the price too much. But the early doge holders are rich.
- dirtyaura 13y ago
  tphyahoo, FYI, seems that you have been hellbanned for almost 4 years. That's such a long time that it feels almost evil. Maybe you should contact HN admins and ask for forgiveness.
baddox 13y ago
That part shouldn't be any harder to understand from an economic standpoint than the fact that a $1 lottery ticket can become worth millions of dollars overnight.
simondlr 13y ago
Yes, exactly! It's all just a network effect of value. Read my post here: http://simondlr.com/post/70089813484/in-the-future-everyone-will-have-their-own http://simondlr.com/post/70089813484/in-the-future-everyone-.... I believe, if go forward with what this entails, everyone will have their own cryptocurrency in the future.
abus 13y ago
As with any product or service, marketing is very important. You could start your own coin but you'd have to promote it well.

by aarondf 13y ago

chunkstuntman 13y ago

Good luck getting aarondfcoin to gain any sort of traction or following. If you can convince a committed and numerous group to believe in anything, it will be worth something.

jsilence 13y ago
If a local group decided to start their on local currency, just like a couple of groups do (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_currency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_currency), then using a bitcoin like system might make sense for them.
- robmcm 13y ago
  Like a hacker news coin?
  - jackgavigan 13y ago
    YCoin.
    - robmcm 13y ago
      y combinator should do it, then they can pay all their startups in YCoins!
      - X4 13y ago
        I'm in :) that would YRock!
    - finishingmove 13y ago
      YCoin? BecauseCoin.

superuser2 13y ago

That doesn't mean anyone would actually buy $846,935 of Dogecoin at once.

GigabyteCoin 13y ago
According to coinmarketcap.com there was about $875K USD of trading done yesterday. If you premined the coin you could theoretically cash out about half of that value, and the minute after the coin would be dead.

Psyonic 13y ago

Sure you can start aarondfcoin: http://www.coingen.io/ http://www.coingen.io/.

wielebny 13y ago
Keep in mind that this generator uses premined genesis block - the same for all currencies. Creating new one, with unique genesis block, with adjusted difficulty can take some time.
- ubercow13 13y ago
  What's the downside to having a reused genesis block?
  - wielebny 13y ago
    By mining your own genesis block, you can adjust starting difficulty. If the difficulty is set too low, then first miners will mine enormously more blocks, before the difficulty readjusts.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

msgilligan 13y ago

You can go out and make aarondfcoin just like you can go out and make a viral video.

Smegger 13y ago

Dogecoins is worth something in the same way that oversized obviously fake bills from party supply stores are worth money; you have to pay to get them but after that they are less valuable then monopoly money. the only reason people want them is to be in on the joke some they can give each other thousands of of fake dollars for nothing.

Houshalter 13y ago

I can't explain why dogecoin is worth so much, probably just crazy speculators (after all, the only market is people using it as a joke/meme, no one is ever going to spend significant amounts of money on it - I hope.) But yes you can create your own cryptocurrency and make a lot of money off of it. This is a good and a bad thing. Good because it should create competition to make better cryptocurrencies. It also helps build the currency as all the miners invest resources in it and get exposed to the currency and have an incentive to try to get others to use it. Bad because, well that money is coming from somewhere, and the users of the cryptocurrency are essentially paying a tax to the miners for not really contributing anything of value.

jey 13y ago
Except it's conceivable that having virality baked into it (e.g. being a "joke/meme") could actually help its adoption move much faster than it otherwise would. And once you have a cryptocurrency that has a lot of buy-in, why not use it for real transactions? I'm not ready to say DOGE will win the cryptocurrency wars, but it certainly wouldn't the first time that a "joke" or "hack" turned into something real and lasting.

KVFinn 13y ago

When those people mined it it wasn't worth anything. It was a surprise to pretty much everyone that a joke became a real coin. Now that people are trying to copy dogecoin it's going to be a lot harder to have that slow ramp.

thomasnno 13y ago

The currency (and the meme it is "based on") is somewhat attractive, its silly image made me laugh, and mine for a few days, getting 120 000 or so Doge. If enough people think it funny enough to use, and of low enough value to actually use instead of just hold, it may have a future as a low value tipping currency. Your aarondfcoin lacks that funny easygoing silly meme power, I belive.

natmaster 13y ago

People have tried to copy the success, but has failed horribly. Dogecoin is special because it was first, and the early community built a loving friendly place. People like friendly doges.

unreal37 13y ago
What was DOGE first at? People love it because it started as a joke that they themselves were in on. And then the joke became real.

rallison 13y ago

The short answer is yes. The longer answer is that you also need virality. There are multiple coins released every day [1]. Most of these coins go nowhere. Why are so many coins released? Quite simply, most coins are forks of Bitcoin/Litecoin/etc with minor tweaks. Occasionally, you get a truly new coin based on something new, but most simply tweak the coins per block, the difficulty re-targeting rate, the starting difficulty, the block time, etc. Coingen.io exemplifies how simple this is. Of course, there are exceptions, such as the upcoming Etherium [2], the first Turing complete cryptocurrency (as far as I know, at least). Despite that, most coins basically fail. Sure, they receive hashing power, and some even get onto exchanges. Most of them, however, don't really go anywhere. So, yes, it is relatively easy to create and launch a coin. It is a bit harder to launch a coin that makes it to an exchange. It is harder still to make one that also sticks around and stays in the public consciousness (such as dogecoin). Finally, let's say you have a great idea for a new coin. The way some people previously got rich by creating a new coin was to premine the coin. Basically, one would mine the first x number of blocks, before releasing it. This still happens, but is now much more often frowned upon. So, to get rich off of creating a coin, you basically would need to premine a coin, and convince others that you had a good reason to premine it [3]. This absolutely still happens, but is becoming tougher to pull off. So yes, you could create aarondfcoin. Yes, you could probably release it and get hashing power thrown at it. But, would you make money doing so? Well, that requires a bit more effort. Keep in mind that there are hundreds of attempted alt currencies for every dogecoin success. That said, yes, there is still room for success here, but it usually requires more than just creating aarondfcoin. The virality aspect is the more important aspect, at the moment. [1] See the bitcointalk announcement forum https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=159.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=159.0 [2] http://ethereum.org/ http://ethereum.org/ and the whitepaper: http://ethereum.org/ethereum.html http://ethereum.org/ethereum.html [3] Yes, there are a still a number of ways to make money off of releasing a coin that doesn't involve premining (or appears not to involve premining), but that is a topic worthy of its own thread.

rms 13y ago
Whoa, ethereum. What kind of setup do I want to start mining ether from the start?

krakensden 13y ago

It's nominally worth $850k, but I am skeptical you could find someone to take the other side of that trade. Dogecoin is like any other currency. The things that make it useful are belief and people willing to exchange things for it. It's unlike other currencies in that mostly the things being exchanged are electronic and not worth meatspacecoin. There is, of course, no reason it has to stay that way.

tphyahoo 13y ago
Dogecoin has a daily volume of almost 1M USD. coinmarketcap.com It's fairly liquid. You absolutely could cash out. Probably over several days, so you don't move the price too much. But the early doge holders are rich.
dirtyaura 13y ago
tphyahoo, FYI, seems that you have been hellbanned for almost 4 years. That's such a long time that it feels almost evil. Maybe you should contact HN admins and ask for forgiveness.

baddox 13y ago

That part shouldn't be any harder to understand from an economic standpoint than the fact that a $1 lottery ticket can become worth millions of dollars overnight.

simondlr 13y ago

Yes, exactly! It's all just a network effect of value. Read my post here: http://simondlr.com/post/70089813484/in-the-future-everyone-will-have-their-own http://simondlr.com/post/70089813484/in-the-future-everyone-.... I believe, if go forward with what this entails, everyone will have their own cryptocurrency in the future.

abus 13y ago

As with any product or service, marketing is very important. You could start your own coin but you'd have to promote it well.