Frequently Asked Questions
Dogecoin is a consensus network that enables a new payment system and a completely digital money. It is a decentralized peer-to-peer payment network that is powered by its users with no central authority or middlemen. From a user perspective, Dogecoin is pretty much like cash for the Internet.
Developers Mr. Markus and Jackson Palmer co-created dogecoin as a joke in 2013. Even the way people originally obtained the coin was meant to be ridiculous: In return for solving mathematical puzzles, dogecoin miners operating fast-running computers received anywhere from one dogecoin to hundreds of thousands of dogecoins.
Nobody owns the Dogecoin network much like no one owns the technology behind email. Dogecoin is controlled by all Dogecoin users around the world. While developers are improving the software, they can't force a change in the Dogecoin protocol because all users are free to choose what software and version they use. In order to stay compatible with each other, all users need to use software complying with the same rules. Dogecoin can only work correctly with a complete consensus among all users. Therefore, all users and developers have a strong incentive to protect this consensus.
From a user perspective, Dogecoin is nothing more than a mobile app or computer program that provides a personal Dogecoin wallet and allows a user to send and receive dogecoins with them. This is how Dogecoin works for most users. Behind the scenes, the Dogecoin network is sharing a public ledger called the "block chain". This ledger contains every transaction ever processed, allowing a user's computer to verify the validity of each transaction. The authenticity of each transaction is protected by digital signatures corresponding to the sending addresses, allowing all users to have full control over sending dogecoins from their own Dogecoin addresses. In addition, anyone can process transactions using the computing power of specialized hardware and earn a reward in dogecoins for this service. This is often called "mining".
