For Australian Jackson Palmer, the joke cryptocurrency he helped create was never meant to reach a market capitalisation of $US2 billion ($2.4 billion).

But that's exactly what happened on January 7 to the cryptocurrency the 30-year-old technology company product manager co-created just over four years ago with Billy Markus, a software developer at IBM in Portland, Oregon.

A few weeks earlier, Fairfax Media sat down to speak with Mr Palmer in San Francisco, where he now lives, to discuss what was then a cryptocurrency worth $111 million.

"It was $400 million a few weeks ago, or around a month ago," Palmer says.

"But that's just the nature of cryptocurrency. It goes up and down, you know."

Palmer co-created dogecoin when he was 26 and lived in Sydney. It all started when he fired off a jokey tweet and then decided to make it a reality by creating the new cryptocurrency.

"It was a piss take," he says.

"My whole point of dogecoin was taking a jab at all these alt-coins that were coming on the scene — like Initial Coin Offerings are today — and, you know, basically making a cash grab.

"So I made the joke and it was me taking the piss out of really scammy cryptocurrency back then. But then it quickly turned into a legitimate thing … and at that point, I was like, 'Oh my god, now I feel responsible for this joke'. I feel responsible for this economy."

Dogecoin (pronounced dough-je coin) takes both its name and mascot from one of 2013's most viral internet memes. The meme takes its name from a reference on an episode of a popular 1990s internet cartoon series called Homestar Runner.

The term "doge" was revived, mashed-up with a quirky photo of a pet Shiba Inu dog and then sprinkled with a few ungrammatical phrases written in the much-maligned comic sans font. In 2013, it exploded across the internet.

In 2014, Palmer, who was born and raised in Gosford on the NSW central coast, told Fairfax he believed that the doge theme was what helped to make his cryptocurrency market appear less menacing, more accessible and a place in which he hoped philanthropists would outnumber the profiteers.

Within two months of launching, it hit a market capitalisation of $74 million. On Thursday, dogecoin's market cap was $983.3 million, with each Dogecoin worth 0.008709 Australian dollars.

Right now, there are 1490 cryptocurrencies in existence, with dogecoin sitting at No. 40 in terms of market cap, according to coinmarketcap.com. For comparison's sake, the current value of the bitcoin market is $233.9 billion, while the entire cryptocurrency market is worth $679.4 billion.

Palmer says for the first six to twelve months after creating dogecoin, he tried to steer it in what he believed was the right direction to make sure that few scammers were involved and to ensure that investors were not getting "greedy" about collecting dogecoin.

"I did that and we did some charity drives and stuff like that earlier on. But eventually, capitalist greed got its hooks into it just like it has for the rest of cryptocurrency."

What ended up happening, as has occurred with other crypto-currencies, is market manipulation in order to drive up the price for some people to make quick profits.

"[People in the cryptocurrency community] get a few daily emails that say, 'Make the price go up, make the price go up'. That's pretty much what it's evolved into, unfortunately."

As documented by a Business Insider investigation in November, cryptocurrency exchanges have become rife with "pump and dump" scams in recent times. Typically, these would be illegal in most regulated markets as they leave unsuspecting investors at risk of large losses.

The pump and dumps are typically coordinated using messaging app Telegram. In one week, Business Insider observed five apparent pump and dumps, which artificially inflate the price of a cryptocurrency in the hope of making a quick profit at the expense of other investors.

Surprisingly, Palmer doesn't own any dogecoin.

"I gave away what I had," he says.

"Back in the day, I had a few million dogecoin, which was nothing. It was like five or ten grand's worth. And I gave it all away to charities that we were supporting early on," he says.

"I thought … how long can it last? I was about a month into it and I thought dogecoin can last maybe a couple of months; people aren't going to remember it anymore in a year, why would I hold onto it? So, sadly, I have no dogecoin.

"Unlike most people who have created cryptocurrencies, I'm not some baller getting around in a Ferrari. The joke is on me, firmly. That being said I feel like I'd be a bit of a hypocrite if I was like some rich crypto guy off the back of a joke that was me poking fun at crypto."

Palmer adds that he is kind of glad he didn't become rich off it.

"While I would like to become a multi-millionaire," he says, "what I've seen happen to those who create cryptocurrencies and make a heap of money off them is they become less and less grounded. They become part of the hype cycle and say things like, 'Blockchain is going to do everything in the future' and, 'Your fridge is going to be connected to a blockchain' and all this bullshit. It's like, they are completely detached from reality. And so in a way, I am glad that I didn't get rich off it because I worry that I would turn into one of those people."