Compared with other cryptocurrencies, Dogecoin had a fast initial coin production schedule: 100 billion coins were in circulation by mid-2015, with an additional 5.256 billion coins every year thereafter. As of 30 June 2015, the 100 billionth Dogecoin had been mined.[7] While there are few mainstream commercial applications, the currency has gained traction as an Internet tipping system, in which social media users grant Dogecoin tips to other users for providing interesting or noteworthy content.[8]

Dogecoin was created by programmer Billy Markus from Portland, Oregon, who hoped to create a fun cryptocurrency that could reach a broader demographic than bitcoin. In addition, he wanted to distance it from the controversial history of other coins.[9] At the same time, Jackson Palmer, a member of Adobe Systems' marketing department in Sydney, was encouraged on Twitter by a student at Front Range Community College to make the idea a reality.[10]

After receiving several mentions on Twitter, Palmer purchased the domain dogecoin.com and added a splash screen, which featured the coin's logo and scattered Comic Sans text. Markus saw the site linked in an IRC chat room, and started efforts to create the currency after reaching out to Palmer. Markus based Dogecoin on an existing cryptocurrency, Luckycoin,[11] which features a randomized reward that is received for mining a block, although this behavior was later changed to a static block reward in March 2014.[12] In turn, Luckycoin is based on Litecoin,[13] which also uses scrypt technology in its proof-of-work algorithm. The use of scrypt means that miners cannot use SHA-256 bitcoin mining equipment, and that dedicated FPGA and ASIC devices used for mining are complicated to create. Dogecoin was officially launched on December 6, 2013.[14] The Dogecoin network was originally intended to produce 100 billion Dogecoins, but later, it was announced that the Dogecoin network would produce infinite Dogecoins.[15][16][17]

On December 19, 2013, Dogecoin jumped nearly 300 percent in value in 72 hours, rising from US$0.00026 to $0.00095,[18] with a volume of billions of Dogecoins per day.[19] This growth occurred during a time when Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies were reeling from China's decision to forbid Chinese banks from investing into the Bitcoin economy.[13] Three days later, Dogecoin experienced its first major crash by dropping by 80% due to this event and due to large mining pools seizing opportunity in exploiting the very little computing power required at the time to mine Dogecoin.[20]

On December 25, 2013, the first major theft of Dogecoin occurred when millions of coins were stolen during a hack on the online cryptocurrency wallet platform Dogewallet.[21] The hacker gained access to the platform's filesystem and modified its send/receive page to send any and all coins to a static address.[22][23] This hacking incident spiked tweets about Dogecoin, making it the most mentioned altcoin on Twitter at the time, although it was in reference to a negative event.[24] To help those who lost funds on Dogewallet after its breach, the Dogecoin community started an initiative named "SaveDogemas" to help donate coins to those who had them stolen. Approximately one month later, enough money was donated to cover all of the coins that were stolen.[25] On January 2014, the trading volume of Dogecoin briefly surpassed that of Bitcoin and all other crypto-currencies combined, however, its market capitalization remained substantially behind that of Bitcoin.[26] As of 25 January 2015, Dogecoin had a market capitalization of USD 13.5 million.[27] April 2015 Jackson Palmer announced he is taking an "extended leave of absence" from the cryptocurrency community.[28]

In January 2018, Dogecoin reached $2 billion market cap.