Do you know Billy Markus? The guy who launched Dogecoin in 2013 with his buddy Jackson Palmer. Honestly, it’s quite a crazy story when you think about it.

So Billy Markus is an American programmer born in 1983 in Portland, Oregon. Before becoming a crypto figure, he worked at IBM as a senior software engineer. Nothing particularly flashy at first glance. But here’s the thing, he and Palmer had the idea to create a cryptocurrency based on the Shiba Inu meme, just for fun. It was supposed to be a joke mocking serious projects like Bitcoin and Litecoin.

What’s crazy is that no one expected Dogecoin to become what it has become. A project launched on a whim, just for laughs, and it exploded. Today, Billy Markus remains quite discreet despite everything. He’s active on X (formerly Twitter) where he has amassed several million followers, but he’s never really sought the spotlight unlike other crypto figures.

It’s an interesting figure because Billy Markus embodies that underground and authentic side of the crypto community. He didn’t launch Dogecoin to get rich or for a big marketing stunt. It was just a joke between two developers. And maybe that’s why Dogecoin survived and grew, unlike thousands of other projects launched with much more serious intentions.