Dogecoin was created in December 2013 by Billy Markus (a former IBM developer) and Jackson Palmer (an Australian engineer at Adobe). Palmer originally joked that cryptocurrencies took themselves too seriously; Markus handled the technical implementation on the Litecoin codebase.
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The name and logo are based on the “Doge” internet meme: a 2010 photo of a Shiba Inu named Kabosu.
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Dogecoin has no final supply cap — since 2014, a fixed annual issuance gives it an inflationary character, well-suited for micro-transactions and tipping.
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2014: the community raises 67.8 million DOGE to sponsor NASCAR driver Josh Wise — one of the project's first major community-driven moments.
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Jackson Palmer left the project in 2015 and is now a vocal crypto-industry critic at Adobe. Billy Markus remains active in the community as “Shibetoshi Nakamoto.”
Dogecoin has no issuing company — a non-profit Dogecoin Foundation supports network maintenance, but the project is fundamentally community-driven.