Dogecoin Founder Admits He Was Offered Millions To Promote Dogechain But Refused

Billy Markus, one of the founders of Dogecoin, revealed he recently rejected an offer to become an instant millionaire by turning down a $14 million crypto offer for a DOGE-inspired project.

Markus, who goes by the Twitter handle Shibetoshi Nakamoto, is one of the vocal cryptocurrency personalities on the microblogging site, but the latest admission did not come directly from him. Instead, a Twitter user who goes by the name RepeatAfterVee was the one who broke the news.

"Billy was offered to get 10B DC from Dogechain to promote their project. That is, at the current price, 14 MILLION DOLLARS," the tweet read. "@BillyM2k turning down this much money to avoid betraying your community is worthy of our deepest respect," the Twitter user noted.

"Yeah, no one really cares anyway and just assumes I got rich from creating dogecoin or orchestrating pump and dumps or whatever other things I constantly get accused of," the co-founder of the world's first dog-themed altcoin responded to the tweet, clarifying he did not become rich because he co-created Dogecoin.

Some Twitter users praised Markus' gesture of loyalty to the community by saying, "Sorry Billy, but I'm thankful for you. You are truly a rare breed of Shib. May Dogecoin forever pump in your favor, in Elons name I pray, Amen."

A Twitter user wrote, "It is easy to sell out, but to stay strong to your principles is the greatness and a noble act of selflessness," while another person noted, "Aw Billy, you are such a generous person with a kind heart. Good karma is coming your way I guarantee it!"

Markus left the Dogecoin project shortly after it was officially launched. But, he remains very active on Twitter, most of the time commenting about DOGE and other crypto issues, tweeting with Elon Musk, posting memes and blocking other Twitter users, including his co-founder Jackson Palmer.

Like Palmer, Markus admitted he has no intention to go back to Dogecoin development or any plans of creating a new crypto asset or digital currency.

Meanwhile, Dogechain was launched this month by Ethereum-based developers to create a decentralized finance (DeFi) that allows users to use DOGE with Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), games and other related products. And while its name seems similar to Dogecoin, it is an unofficial project, and is not, in any way, related to the popular crypto asset that was initially developed as a joke.

As of 1.19 a.m. ET on Monday, DOGE was trading down 2.36% at $0.06188 with a 24-hour volume of $321,050,329 based on the latest data from CoinMarketCap.