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Dogecoin community raises more than $30K for clean water in Kenya

The Dogecoin community collects more than $30,000 in donations for a clean water initiative in Kenya.

 

Fernando Alfonso III

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Posted on Mar 16, 2014   Updated on May 31, 2021, 3:17 pm CDT

Ever since Dogecoin‘s inception December, users have had far more fun giving away the cryptocurrency than hoarding it.

With one dogecoin worth literally less than a grain of sand (to be more specific, on Dec. 18 one coin was worth $ 0.00025), Reddit and 4chan users tipped each other hundreds of thousands of coins for pure fun.

Today this freewheeling tipping culture still exists. But now, it’s really doing some good.

On Friday mysterious Dogecoin enthusiast @savethemhood donated 14 million Dogecoins via Twitter to Doge4Water, a Dogecoin Foundation-powered wells for clean water in the Tana River area of Eastern Kenya. The campaign was also spearheaded by Eric Nakagawa, the creator of lolcat hub I Can Has Cheezburger.

@tipdoge tip @Doge4water 14000000 may we all drink water. let the wealthy fill your cup. #savethemhood

— Hood (@savethemhood) March 16, 2014

That contribution pushed the total donations to 40 million, or abotu $33,000 at current exchange rates. @savethemhood’s donation has been called the largest dogecoin tip in the cyrptocurrency’s three month history.

It is astonishing that we have fellow humans on this planet without water. We have the wealth, but not the will. The greedy do nothing….

— Hood (@savethemhood) March 16, 2014

Dogecoin enthusiasts have made a habit of donating to charity. They raised hundreds of dollars for Jamaican bobsled team and Indian Olympic hopefuls. The currency was named after the doge meme featuring a perplexed Shiba Inu pup and Comic Sans text. As of Sunday afternoon, one Dogecoin traded at a  $.00083.

Update: Next Media Animation, the popular Taiwanese parody video creators, have commemorated Doge4Water’s success with one of their patented CGI creations.

Correction: This story originally used an outdated conversion rate for Dogecoin and as such included an inaccurate estimate of the charity drives contributions in USD.

Image via Doge4Water

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*First Published: Mar 16, 2014, 3:54 pm CDT