Virtual currency is hard for most people to grasp, and not just because it isn’t physical money.
You may have heard of Bitcoin, valued at around $800 per virtual coin in recent weeks, but the figure fluctuates as does physical currency in currency markets.
Other virtual currencies have cropped up since Bitcoin, including Litecoin and Dogecoin, said former Hawaii resident Eric Nakagawa, a creator of the funny animal picture site ICanHasCheezburger.com, which he and partner Kari Unebasami sold for $2 million.
"The community (around Dogecoin) is similar to Cheezburger, (with) happy people sharing it, learning about it and not being scared off by the currency," he said.
Search the Web for answers and the Dogecoin website will tell you, "Dogecoin is an open source peer-to-peer cryptocurrency, favored by shiba inus (dogs) worldwide."
Not helpful.
Dogecoins are not real coins. The shiba inu featured in graphics on the website is taken from a picture of a dog in Japan that went viral online. The word is pronounced "DOZH-coin," with the "zh" portion sounding like the "g" in the Olympic sport called luge.
The Dogecoin virtual currency, similar to Bitcoin, is based off cryptography, or code-writing. The virtual coins are created by computers completing massive mathematical calculations, but aside from the fact that it’s how the currency is generated, that hardly seems to be the important part.
People within the Dogecoin community have a reputation for giving away their Dogecoins, a process called "tipping," explained Ben Triola, a partner in St. Louis-based Rampant Interactive, a Web design and mobile app creation company.
He has seen Hawaii-based Dogecoin users on Twitter and in other online forums.
Triola has built a point-of-sale system for merchants’ use of the virtual currency called DogePOS, "which, phonetically, sounds like dozh-paws," he chuckled.
Some months back the Dogecoin community learned that the Jamaican bobsled team didn’t have enough money to get to Sochi for the Olympics, and they raised $35,000 in four days, Triola said. Back then the process of converting the Dogecoin to actual money for the team was a tad circuitous, but it worked and the team got to Russia.
Now the so-called cryptocoins or cryptocurrency can be cashed in online through various exchanges. As with real money markets and bricks-and-mortar currency exchange houses, Dogecoin bearers should shop around before deciding which to use, to ensure maximum return.
Triola understands that most merchants and people hoping to make some coin with their virtual coins would want a quick conversion for guaranteed return.
However, the St. Louis entrepreneur who got Triola working on DogePOS in the first place, Strange Donuts co-founder Corey Smale, is "fine sitting on Dogecoin for a bit, to possibly exchange them for other goods and services," Triola said. "I really applaud that. That helps support our goal of making it a usable currency."
Additional adopters of Dogecoin acceptance as well as Triola’s point-of-sale software include a clothing store in Northern California, a bakery in France and a tattoo artist in Texas. "We’re steadily adding new businesses every day, but we’re purposely keeping it a little slow-paced because the software is still in beta (testing)," he said. He anticipates opening it up "to anybody" in a week or two.
Dogecoin users who communicate via the Reddit.com website are increasingly reporting that they’ve made purchases using the cyberfundage, including Nakagawa, who bought a pizza at JJ Dolan’s downtown. "I’m trying to get them set up," he said.
He "mines" virtual coins doing the whole calculation thing and usually gives them away, tipping people online. Nakagawa also gave a bunch of Dogecoins to Ben Huh, the businessman who bought ICanHasCheezburger. "I tipped him 1,000 coins, and he’s like, ‘This is real, holy crap!’" Nakagawa said.
The online Dogecoin community numbers in the tens of thousands, and Huh’s so-called Cheezburger Network gets 10 million to 20 million unique online visitors each month, which has inspired the two to keep thinking creatively on how to build on the success of each.
ON THE ‘NET:
http://dogecoin.com/
http://icanhas.cheezburger.com/
http://www.reddit.com/r/dogecoin
http://archives.starbulletin.com/2008/09/21/business/engle.html
http://is.gd/BuzzCheezburgerSale
Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.
