Dogecoin Co-Creator Says Cryptocurrency Was Created in 'Two Hours,' Environmental Impact Wasn't Considered

Dogecoin co-creator Billy Markus has said that he didn't take environmental impact into consideration while creating the cryptocurrency. Created mainly as a joke nearly eight years Dogecoin has now become a household name. This is partly due to the Shiba Inu-based meme currency itself, but the digital coin saw great popularity following endorsements from celebrities such as Tesla CEO Elon Musk and rapper Meek Mill. Musk once again tweeted that he strongly believed in "crypto," adding "it can't drive a massive increase in fossil fuel use, especially coal."

Musk's tweet came after Tesla suspended the purchase of vehicles using Bitcoin (price in India), the world's oldest and largest cryptocurrency, in which the leading electric car manufacturer invested $1.5 billion (roughly Rs. 10,990 crores) earlier this year. The company further said that cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels and it believed it has a good future but it cannot come at the "great cost to the environment."

Markus, who uses the username Shibetoshi Nakamoto on Twitter, initially reacted to the tweet with a "loudly crying face" emoji. When the tweet started getting traction, the co-creator of Dogecoin (price in India) came back and clarified that his response implied: "aw man, you right, environment stuff." Under the first tweet, user @TerrysFishyTips asked Markus if he considered energy usage while creating the digital currency. "Or was that not something you thought about? How can the dev community make doge more efficient?" the user further asked.

In his response, Markus said that he had created Dogecoin in "like two hours and didn't consider anything."

Later in the day, Musk, who has also referred to himself as "Dogefather" in the past, once again tweeted that he was working with Dogecoin developers to improve system transaction efficiency. At the time of writing,

Dogecoin was trading at $0.53 (roughly Rs 39). The SpaceX CEO last week made an appearance on Saturday Night Live, a comedy sketch show, where he said the Dogecoin was a "hustle". Following Musk's remarks, the digital currency, that rallied massively over the past few months just as Bitcoin and Ether (price in India) have, plunged by over a third of its value.

Created in 2013 by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, the digital currency, like Bitcoin, offers recourse to the inadequacies of traditional banking systems.