The meme coin can now be accessed from CoinFlip ATMs in 46 states, while the protocol’s software has just received an update
Originally created as a joke, Dogecoin has seen a surge in popularity this year, thanks in large part to publicity from celebrities like Elon Musk, Gene Simmons and Snoop Dogg. The spike in interest caused the price of the coin to rally more than 1,750% since the start of the year to almost $0.09, propelling its market cap to over $10 billion at one point.
Now the meme coin receives yet more legitimacy as it is listed on over 1,800 ATMs across 46 US states operated by leading Bitcoin ATM provider CoinFlip.
Founded in 2015, Chicago-based CoinFlip aims to drive crypto adoption by providing liquidity and accessibility to the nation’s underbanked communities. To this end, the company offers a simple user experience with low transaction fees and 24/7 customer support.
CoinFlip started 2020 with 441 ATMs, and as demand for accessible crypto grew, the network expanded to over 1,400 terminals by the end of the year. Indeed, the company’s revenue last month showed a 359% increase from the previous year.
CEO and Co-founder of CoinFlip, Daniel Polotsky, commented, “CoinFlip’s mission has always been to bank the unbanked and break down the barrier to entry. In doing so we’re on a mission to make cryptocurrencies available to anyone who’s interested in investing, even in the most rural towns of America. Given it’s growing popularity and recent mass adoption, we are dedicated to making sure that Dogecoin is a part of our portfolio of coins, and encourage further support of this cryptocurrency in the coming months”.
This news comes on the same day that the first Dogecoin update since 2019 was announced. With demand for Dogecoin surging, its developers released a new version of the Dogecoin Core software to improve performance.
The most important developments in the upgrade are the removal of expensive integrity checks to increase the speed at which a node can upload blocks, as well as a reduction in the default mempool expiry time–i.e. how long pending transactions are cached while waiting to be added to the block before they expire.
Dogecoin is currently the fourteenth largest cryptocurrency by market cap which is fairly impressive for a meme coin, and this week’s news could further validate it and potentially drive yet more interest on top of the much wow it has already received.