
Jamaican Bobsledders Ride Dogecoin Into Olympics - steveklabnik
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-04/jamaican-bobsledders-ride-dogecoin-into-olympics.html
======
willholloway
Dogecoin is monetizing user generated content, an economic revolution online.
Micropayments for creators are becoming a reality.

From the article comments:

"They're also digging wells in Africa and training companion dogs. It's a real
party over at /r/dogecoin. Someone gave me thirty bucks for telling a joke."

~~~
tlrobinson
That's great, but I get the feeling Dogecoin users are even less informed
about the technology than the average Bitcoin user. I wonder how many
understand why Dogecoin in it's current state (like Bitcoin) _can 't_ scale to
support widespread usage of micropayments?

There are two problems:

1\. The protocol limits the maximum block size to 1MB
([https://github.com/dogecoin/dogecoin/blob/master-1.5/src/mai...](https://github.com/dogecoin/dogecoin/blob/master-1.5/src/main.h#L30))
which puts Dogecoin's maximum transactions per second at 70, without a forking
protocol change.

2\. Dogecoin targets one minute between blocks, which is 10 times faster than
Bitcoin's 10 minutes per block. That number wasn't chosen arbitrarily. There
needs to be plenty of time for new blocks to flood the network, otherwise
forks will become more common as miners work on outdated information. This
leads to reduction in effective hashrate and increased centralization of
miners. Increasing the maximum block size significantly will be at odds with
Dogecoin's faster confirmations.

~~~
steveklabnik
The community has already dealt successfully with one fork due to a bug. I'm
sure the same thing can happen in the future if there are problems.

In many ways, Dogecoin is 'worse is better.'

~~~
lappa
You would call that successfully? The developers have no idea what they're
doing. They copied bitcoins code, but didn't realize that they made a 500
million doge transaction limit, so they gave their users a short period of
time to update their clients. They ended up with a fork after someone made a
500 million doge tx which could have allowed many many doublespends. Doge will
not be able to scale up to real economic activity unless they get a real dev
team.

~~~
dublinben
>They copied bitcoins code

They copied the code to Litecoin. At least get your facts straight.

~~~
benajnim
Just to clarify some of the facts.

Dogecoin uses scrypt like litecoin, but this proof of work was first used by
Tenebrix. It also employs the random block reward (vs fixed for litecoin)
pioneered by LotteryTickets (which includes the ongoing 10k block reward
feature). I'm not exactly sure which repo it was started from, but the wallet
client, namely the 1.5 release inherits all Litecoin updates since 0.6.*.

~~~
tlrobinson
"Pioneered"? Is there any advantage to random rewards, besides novelty?

~~~
nostrademons
It makes mining more addictive, which increases the number of people who are
willing to mine, even if the financial rewards for doing it drop. Same reason
why people by lotto tickets even though it's a net economic negative.

I'd argue that the Dogecoin creators are actually quite brilliant, because
they manage to exploit several known cognitive biases in humans to drive
adoption. Design for the world as it actually is, not for how you would like
it to be.

~~~
tlrobinson
So, novelty.

------
phren0logy
I started mining doge just to give it a whirl. It's good, clean fun for those
of us who don't expect to get rich.

In the event you decide to give it a shot, a few pointers:

1\. Block rewards will be halved in 8 days, so giddy up.

2\. Obviously, use a GPU-based miner if you have a decent GPU.

3\. Sign up for a pool other than dogehouse, which has a highly
disproportionate number of of the mining horsepower.

last but not least

4\. Enjoy the community, and throw doge around like a high roller. The
community is the best part of the whole experience.

~~~
JoshTriplett
Is CPU mining still remotely sensible to do at this point?

Also, what's the recommended client for CPU mining on Linux at this point?

~~~
thomasmeeks
BFGMiner and CGMiner (3.7.2 -- you must use an old version) are both good
choices for ATI or CPU. CUDAMiner if you are using a Nvidia card.

CPU mining is not profitable. But absolutely reasonable to do if you just want
to mine a small amount of dogecoin to see how it all works. My only caveat is
I'd strongly discourage anyone from mining on a laptop for an extended period
of time if they care about the laptop's lifespan.

------
bendoernberg
If you're interested in supporting a fundraising campaign that's on a more
serious note, please consider supporting Doge 4 Kids, our campaign to raise
$30,000 for hearing aid, seizure alert, and mobility assistance service dogs
for children who need them. You can donate by sending DOGE to
DTMxdZkWd7aCX1a7DcJmUJs931b1GSBQsk or through credit/debit card through
Crowdtilt.

[http://www.Doge4Kids.org](http://www.Doge4Kids.org)

------
blhack
The doge donation was a small, but significant, part of the donations that
helped them get there.

[https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/help-the-jamaican-
bobsle...](https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/help-the-jamaican-bobsled-team-
get-to-sochi)

~~~
bryanbuckley
From the campaign description, looks like $30k+ worth of DOGE was donated
while the campaign had raised $73k by that point.

------
untilHellbanned
Bitcoin is to Myspace as Dogecoin is to Facebook?

~~~
sfall
i wouldn't go that far, one issue with bitcoin is that .08 is ~$65 now that
values is ~40k dogecoin last time i checked.

for micro transactions the dogecoin is a better crypto currency but i don't
see it as one or the other think about it as american express vs (mastercard
or visa)

~~~
untilHellbanned
Value can change. Myspace was $500Million company when FB was a ~$500K
company. Today, Myspace ~$5Million, FB $150Billion.

More relevant is that Myspace had an image problem, whereas Facebook got mass
appeal.

A currency that is social will win the internet.

------
pratkar
Shiva Keshavan, Indian luger, also received a majority of his donations in
dogecoin!

[http://www.ibtimes.com/dogecoin-raises-7000-send-indian-
luge...](http://www.ibtimes.com/dogecoin-raises-7000-send-indian-luger-shiva-
keshavan-2014-sochi-olympic-games-1552008)

