Short answers, pulled from the story.
Dogecoin was created by IBM software engineer Billy Markus and Adobe software engineer Jackson Palmer as a deliberate joke, intended to mock the speculative frenzy surrounding cryptocurrencies in 2013. They launched it officially on the 6th of December 2013.
Dogecoin reached its peak market capitalization of over $85 billion on the 5th of May 2021. That same week, its value had increased more than 7,000% year-to-date, briefly making it the fifth-highest-valued cryptocurrency.
Dogecoin started with an intended supply cap of 100 billion coins, which was reached by mid-2015. In February 2014, co-founder Jackson Palmer announced the cap would not be enforced in the codebase, allowing an additional 5 billion Dogecoins to enter circulation every year indefinitely.
In June 2022, plaintiff Keith Johnson filed a complaint in federal court in Manhattan seeking $258 billion in damages, accusing Musk of using his social media influence to artificially inflate Dogecoin's price. On the 29th of August 2024, a federal court dismissed the lawsuit, ruling in favor of Musk and Tesla.
Palmer left in 2015 and stated he believed cryptocurrency had become fundamentally exploitative, structured to benefit its earliest participants at the expense of later buyers. His co-founder Billy Markus said Palmer's position was generally valid.
SpaceX announced on the 9th of May 2021 a rideshare mission to the Moon funded entirely by Dogecoin, the first space mission in history funded by a cryptocurrency. DOGE-1 was a 40 kg CubeSat planned for Intuitive Machines' IM-1 mission, though it was later delayed to a potential future launch.