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Comment by untog | Hacker News Reader

To everyone that dismisses this as a joke currency - how is it different from bitcoin?

How is Dogebook different than Facebook? I mean you can create an account in both, follow your friends, "like" stuff...etc. They are essentially the same so they must both be worth billions, right?

What makes bitcoin different is the network effect and the infrastructure - there are many people who think bitcoin is the cryptocurrency and this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Some day another cryptocurrency may overtake it but for now it's the one because people say it's the one.

Doesn't seem to get exchanged much though, huh

Oh my god. I'm going to make Dogebook

I think Facebook already is mostly Dogebook.

Right, but there are now a growing number of people who think Dogecoin is the one. Which will be just as self-fulfilling.

It has less adoption than Bitcoin and since Bitcoin's value comes from network effects there's no reason why Dogecoin would ever catch up.

Right, so chances are dogecoin is and will remain lower-valued than bitcoin in the aggregate. That's relevant how? Surely multiple virtual currency bubbles can exist concurrently.

On the other hand Dogecoin has better liquidity than BTC, so actually works better as a currency instead of speculation vehicle.

That depends what you mean by "works better as a currency." Considering you need two parties for what I would consider a useful application of currency, I'd say Bitcoin works better.

What do you mean when you say "liquidity", and why do you think Dogecoin has more of it?

It's not. It's identical with a slightly modified POW and some of the values tweaked. The incompetent developer has already accidentally broken the currency once, so it doesn't really bode well for it in the future.

Let's not spread FUD here. The fork is due to old clients not updating.

Eh? The chain broke because the author made a hard forking change with 10 days notice. You can't do that. Bitcoin staged theirs over months and still managed to leave some people behind. It's not FUD if it's true.

It is different from BTC - it's a fork of Litecoin, meaning it uses scrypt rather than SHA-256 and cannot be effectively mined using BTC-oriented ASICs.

There is already at least one scrypt-focussed ASIC, however. https://alpha-t.net/product/scrypt-asic-miner/

Dogecoin absolutely is a joke currency. The currency's name is based on an internet meme. Dogecoin has about as much credibility as Coinye cryptocurrency http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/yeezus-balks-kanye-west-su...

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