Dogecoin has had a massive growth in value in the last year. So what made it grow so much?

Per CNBC, the growth of Dogecoin came as people had “extra capital from stimulus checks” and the launch of popular trading apps like Robinhood. It doesn’t hurt that Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and Tesla CEO Elon Musk embraced the cryptocurrency, too.

But Billy Markus, the software engineer who co-created Dogecoin, told CNBC the community really made it a powerful coin, even though it’s all based around a meme.

• “The crypto community can be pretty elitist and not very inclusive, and we wanted to make a community that was more fun, lighthearted and inclusive,” Markus told CNBC. “It worked, and is why the Dogecoin community consistently maintains a presence.”

Markus — who uses the Twitter account name Satoshi Nakamoto — has often told people to try out other forms of cryptocurrency. However, people should be mindful about investing.

• “$DOGE is and always will be my #1 without question, and I’m sure many of yours too, but I do want to encourage people to explore the crypto space with an open mind, there’s a lot of interesting as well as super wild and ridiculous things going on,” he tweeted.
• He added, “If you do, though, always be careful — it’s a minefield, lots of new projects are scams, and everything too good to be true is. But I think it’s an enlightening experience and gives perspective. Might start with the big projects (ETH for example). The crypto scene is massive.”

Dogecoin buyers scammed?

Some Dogecoin investors who decided to watch Musk’s appearance on “Saturday Night Live” were caught up in a massive scam, according to Business Insider.

According to a report from TRM Labs, scammers hosted YouTube livestreams of Musk’s appearance and included an ad that encouraged people to double or triple their dogecoins.

• “Elon Musk has devoted 500,000,000 DOGE to be distributed to all DOGE holders. Anybody can get some, just visit the website,” one of the livestreams messages read, according to Business Insider.

Users who embraced the message were then scammed out of their dogecoins. The scammer allegedly received 9.7 million dogecoins worth $5 million at that time, as I explained for the Deseret News.