Wow! Such Donation! Dogecoin Sending Jamaican Bobsled Team to the Olympics

It started as an idea on Reddit earlier this week

“Fellow Shibes... We need more publicity! Lets sponsor the Jamaican Bobsled team make it to the Olympics. Think of the positive press!!!! Such Rythm! Such Rhyme! Wow, its Bobsled Time!!!”

The Reddit was in response to an announcement by Jamaican team officials that bobsled team had qualified for the Winter Olympics – its first such bid since 2002, but, unfortunately, lacking the funds that would provide Jamaican Olympians Winston Watt and Marvin Dixon transportation to Sochi, Russia, the team opted to reach out for donations.

Within minutes the idea was embraced by the community with an organized effort created how to donate dogecoins to the Jamaican Bobsled team’s cause, and @JamaicanDogesled account was created on Twitter to help expand the initiative, along with the #dogesled hastag for tweeting about the project. The community then joined efforts with crowdsourcing platform, Crowdtilt, which along with Indiegogo was being used to organize the fundraising for the Jamaican Bobsled team. The result was that within 24 hours, dogecoin users raised $30,000 as the Jamaican Bobsled team met its funding goal.

such fundraise very #crowdfund so #dogesled much $109,000 wow @Dogecoin pic.twitter.com/HdcqKn4gKi — Crowdtilt (@Crowdtilt) January 21, 2014

This news comes on the heels of an announcement by team officials that reported the Jamaican team had qualified for the Winter Olympics – its first such bid since 2002. Unfortunately, lacking the funds that would provide Jamaican Olympians Winston Watt and Marvin Dixon transportation to Russia, the team opted to reach out for donations, an initiative that reaped unforeseen support in the form of Dogesled, an account that successfully raised captured Dogecoin funding.

Cool Runnings

The entire event brought back musings of the Jamaican Bobsled and the 1993 film Cool Runnings, a dramatized version of the issues of the 1988 Jamaican Olympic team. Similar to 1988 team which was based on the unlikely story (but one that ultimately made sense) of taking track stars and converting them to bobsled runners, the 2014 team’s effort to travel to Russia now has its own story.

Created less than two months ago, dogecoin is a digital currency whose origins can be traced to Doge, a popular internet meme that combines images of a dog and English phrases (more about it here: World’s First Crowdsourced Currency: Why I Love Dogecoin and You Will Too). On the outside looking in, the currency originally became known as more of a joke, but from the onset had a very serious foundation. As such, the general public is now seeing just how ‘real’ the digital currency is and the myriad support for Dogecoin.

Dogecoin Foundation & Crowdsourcing

Launched only two weeks ago, Dogecoin Foundation, which was created to serve as a distributed, central organization to help spread the use of dogecoins, quickly showed its power as it became one of the driving forces force #dogesled. Created by dogecoin founders Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, the foundation added the “2014 Winter Olympic Jamaican Bobsled Team” among its list of donation projects to serve as a central destination to handle donations.

Among the foundation’s members, Liam Butler was commented in the Guardian that “As someone who grew up in the 90's, Cool Runnings was the ultimate feel good movie about underdogs out of their element achieving their dreams.” He added that "We started without a concrete plan in mind” and “I sent a few emails out… but that was the extent of it."

However, this story is more than just the power of a few individuals, but portrays the power of collected unity. It also provides a glimpse of the future of money, which is quickly becoming the present.

(image source: @JamaicaDogsled's profile photo)