Dogecoin is a kind of cryptocurrency that began as a spoof on Bitcoin. Now it’s one of the most highly valued cryptocurrencies, thanks in part to Tesla CEO Elon Musk that pushed the digital currency into mass awareness.
Dogecoin User Case
Dogecoin serves as a means to transfer money between people. It achieves this either as a payment for goods or services or simply to sending cash.
Dogecoin runs on a decentralized web of computers that use a shared ledger called a blockchain. The blockchain confirms transactions and assures the uprightness of the data.
Acquiring Dogecoin can be done through several sites. Your choice of which site to use is dependent on what your purpose for buying the coin is. However, you need a wallet where you can store your coins. Currently, the price is $0.206019 at the time of writing. This is a drop from its all-time high of $0.72.
To get your DogeCoin wallet simply go to the Dogecoin site and download the DogeCoin client for Windows, Linux, or macOS.
Why Is Dogecoin Wallet Syncing So Slow?
Note that after downloading the wallet, it can take you a while for the client to sync up to date. When you open your wallet the first thing it does is to examine all the recent blocks on the blockchain and tries to get up to date with the network
Your wallet downloads and verifies blocks by opening communication with other links on the network. Because of that, syncing process will be usually slower. During this process, your most recent transactions will not be visible and therefore your wallet balance will be incorrect.
It can take up to 20 hours for the syncing to complete and in the end, the synchronized program will take 20 GB of hard disk space.
To sync your Dogecoin wallet faster you need to follow the following steps;
Bootstrap
Download the bootstrap of the Blockchain. The Blockchain is basically every transaction ever made for Dogecoin.
For transactions to be approved, the application has to see all activities in the blockchain. The bootstrap is big hence the best way to share this is by a torrent.
Prepare Folder
The guideline below will help prepare Dogecoin Core Wallet for receiving the new bootstrap:
- Make sure the Dogecoin Core Wallet is not running in your Task Manager/Activity Monitor.
- Make sure you have a backup copy of your wallet.dat file.
- Navigate to your Dogecoin Core Wallet Data Folder.
- Delete the following folders and files: “blocks” folder, “database” folder, “dogecoin. conf” file, and the “peers.dat” file.
After you are done copy folders & files from torrent download and paste them into your Dogecoin Core Wallet Data folder.
Change permissions by right-clicking on each of the files and folders in the previous step (the copied ones in your data folder, not the torrent ones).
Select Properties; uncheck Read-Only and press Okay (to apply to subfolders and files).
You can now start Dogecoin Core Wallet again. The wallet will now jump from years to synchronize to everything after the sync date above.
Other Options
There are alternatives that you can use that will make it easier for you.
You can use a lite wallet such as a multi-doge wallet which operates the same way as the standard Dogecoin wallet. It does not have to sync thereby making it more hassle-free. However, some people prefer the original DogeCoin client.
Another option is to use Dogecoin blockchain explorer. Online wallets are usually less secure but have many more benefits. They are easier to use and set up, can be accessed from any computer which reduces the risk of wallet loss, and are always up to sync.