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For most, Dogecoin (DGC) is just a hoax. But there are criminals who use the coin in all seriousness. A blockchain analyst summarizes what he knows about it.
Dogecoin (DGC) is a strange phenomenon. The coin started as a joke about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but then, as if to parody one’s own parody, it became a coin to be taken seriously right now.
In any case, the doge is distinguished by its longevity. For fiat currencies, there is a rule that they implode on average after 25 years; for cryptocurrencies, the rule is that in most cases they become zombie blockchains after a maximum of 25 months. Doge stands out from this pattern: The coin was founded at the end of 2013 and quickly found a lasting community, which to this day provides for a minor, but sufficient sign of life transaction activity. The meme with the doge is apparently more stable than alleged technical advantages.
As the blockchain analyst Elliptic now reports, the dogecoin community also extends into criminal circles. Elliptic has identified “dogecoin transactions worth hundreds of millions of dollars associated with illegal activities” – including terrorist financing as well as the trade in terrorist financing.
However, the category “theft, fraud and Ponz systems” accounts for the largest part by a heaven-wide margin. According to Elliptic’s pie chart, about 99.99 percent. The analyst has identified “more than 50 cases of theft, fraud and ponzi” that have “drawn hundreds of millions of dollars in Dogecoin”.
This ranges from a hack of Dogewallet, in which $ 14,000 in Dogecoin was stolen, to the plus token Ponzi, in the settlement of which the Chinese police confiscated more than $ 20 million in DGC, and ends with a Turkish scam for mining, which had even raised $ 119 million in DGC.
These sums far outshine all other crimes. The largest share among these is terrorist financing, which includes about $ 40,000 in DGC that Israel has collected from Hamas.
This is followed by the malware family Cliptomaner, which causes the infected computers to mine cryptocurrencies, especially Monero, but also hijacks the RAM to exchange crypto addresses that users copy. With this “clipboard hijacking” Cliptomaner was also able to steal $29,000 in DGC.
The amount of payments for child pornography is significantly lower. It’s only $3,000. Dogecoin is also accepted on several darknet marketplaces, but the usage seems to be relatively low. Donations to far-right bloggers and influencers such as infowars also happen in Dogecoin, but only rarely and in total in the amount of 1,700 dollars.
So far, Dogecoin is mainly considered a memecoin, which uses the good old Internet doge to give an identity to a fun currency. When Elon Musk came out as a dogecoin fan, the coin quickly became popular, and there was a mild hope that Doge would become a real currency for the Internet. But this is still speculation so far.
