By investing in DOGE, Vitalik Buterin was able to turn $25,000 into $4.3 million in three years. Dogecoin was launched in December 2013 to capitalise on the popularity of the Shiba Inu-inspired doge meme at the time. The speculative frenzy that came from Elon Musk's infatuation with the meme-coin took Vitalik off surprise. He gave away all of the DOGe he created to GiveDirectly after selling half of them and donating the cash to charity.