Crypto 101 · Coins

The Scrypt Coin Family: Every Scrypt Coin, Its History and Who Runs It

Scrypt Wallet Research · Updated 2026-09-30

1. In plain English

Scrypt is a way of making mining deliberately memory-hungry. It was designed for password hashing ^{[1, 2]}, and Litecoin chose it for its proof of work when it launched ^[3]. Since then a whole family of coins has used the same function. They are not one project: they are separate blockchains with separate teams, supplies and histories, linked by a shared algorithm and, for many of them, by merge mining ^[4], which lets a miner earn several coins from the same work.

This guide lists the family coin by coin. It is deliberately conservative: where a coin's own site or repository states a fact we cite it, where only a secondary source (an encyclopedia or a mining pool's explainer) does we say so, and where we could not find a reliable statement we leave it out. The family is also unusual because so many of its coins have changed hands, so each section says who has run the project where that is documented.

2. The family at a glance

3. Who has run these projects

The table hides the most distinctive feature of this family: many of its coins have been maintained by someone other than the person who launched them. The documented cases, oldest first:

• Dogecoin. Launched by Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer ^[7]. Both founders stepped away from development in 2014 and a Dogecoin Core development team was formed ^[24]. Palmer left cryptocurrency in 2015, and the Dogecoin Foundation was re-established on 14 August 2021 ^[7].
• Catcoin. Its original wallet was released by a developer known as kr105 on 23 December 2013; he later wrote that he could not continue heading the project and that some users took his place. A successor, Team 2, became the official developer team with release 0.9.1.1 on 31 January 2014, and an unofficial Team 3 also operates ^[25]. The Catcoin Project states that others kept the original chain producing blocks while the founder was away, and that in 2026 he launched a separate new token on Solana rather than reviving the original chain ^[26].
• Junkcoin. Created on 3 May 2013 and, by its own account, left for dead in 2016; community members ("Junkies") and developers restarted it in 2024, and its site names the managers of its development-fund multi-signature wallet ^[12].
• Luckycoin. Launched in May 2013 by a BitcoinTalk user named LuckyC. In August 2024 community members rediscovered an 11-year-old backup of the chain, which had been dormant at block 81,743, and restarted it ^[10]. The Luckycoin Foundation describes the result as a continuation of the original 2013 chain including its genesis block, run by a volunteer community with no venture capital or corporate owners ^[11].
• Litecoin. Founder-led from its release by Charlie Lee on 7 October 2011; in December 2017 he sold his Litecoin holdings ^[5].
• Dingocoin. Created by a developer named Farsider in April 2021 ^[16], and now run as a volunteer "do-ocracy" guided by more than 20 Guardians without a strict hierarchy ^[27].
• Pepecoin. Launched by two Dogecoin community members, Zordiak and Karzo ^[18].

Two caveats. First, a "takeover" here simply means that the people running the software or the chain today are not the original developers; it does not imply that the new team is better or worse. Second, projects describe themselves, so these statements are the projects' own (or a labelled secondary source's) and can change.

4. Litecoin (LTC)

Litecoin was released as an open-source client on GitHub on 7 October 2011 by Charlie Lee ^[5]. It uses Scrypt proof of work, a 2.5-minute target block time and an 84-million coin cap ^{[6, 3]}. It is the parent chain in the family's best-known merge-mining arrangement: Dogecoin began merge mining with it in September 2014 ^[5]. In May 2022 it activated MWEB, an optional confidentiality upgrade, as a soft fork ^[5]. For the supply arithmetic, see Litecoin tokenomics.

5. Dogecoin (DOGE)

Dogecoin launched on 6 December 2013 and was built on Luckycoin and Litecoin code using Scrypt ^[7]. In March 2014 its block reward changed from randomized to a static 10,000 coins ^[7], and it has no supply cap ^[8]. It supports auxiliary proof of work from block 371,337 ^[9], which is what made merge mining with Litecoin possible. Its current source code is at ^[28]. See Dogecoin tokenomics.

6. Luckycoin (LKY)

Luckycoin is the chain the Luckycoin Foundation describes as the one Dogecoin was forked from ^[11]. It launched in May 2013 ^[10], uses Scrypt, and supports merge mining alongside Dogecoin and Litecoin ^[11]. Its source repositories are published by the Luckycoin Foundation, whose GitHub organization lists no public members ^[29]. We do not restate its emission schedule here; consult the project's own documentation. Scrypt Bridge can wrap it as wLKY on Solana, which is covered in what is Luckycoin.

7. Junkcoin (JKC)

Junkcoin describes itself as a 2013 joke coin forked from Litecoin on 3 May 2013 and announced on BitcoinTalk the next day, and as the parent of Luckycoin, which forked from it on 22 May 2013 ^[12]. It uses Scrypt, states a maximum supply of 54 million, and runs a development fund that collects 20 percent of every block, split between liquidity and listings, development and marketing ^[12]. Its source code is published by the Junkcoin Foundation ^[30].

8. Bellscoin (BELLS)

Bellscoin's own site calls it the ancient meme coin born in 2013 ^[13]. Its version 3 repository describes Scrypt proof of work with AuxPoW merge mining, a one-minute block target, a total supply of 500,000,000 coins and a probabilistic block-reward table in which most blocks pay 50 coins and rare blocks pay up to 10,000 ^[14].

9. Catcoin (CAT)

Catcoin launched on 23 December 2013 as a Scrypt-based, cat-themed version of Bitcoin with a 21-million coin cap ^[15]. Its project history page documents a PID-controller difficulty adjustment, a halving every 210,000 blocks, and the successive teams described above ^[25]. It is the clearest example in the family of a chain that outlived its founder's involvement.

10. Dingocoin (DINGO)

Dingocoin was created on 1 April 2021, with its genesis block mined on 2 April, by a developer named Farsider ^[16]. Its repository describes a simplified variant of Scrypt, a one-minute block target, halving every 100,000 blocks and a permanent reward of 10,000 DINGO per block from block 600,000 ^[17]. Governance is a volunteer do-ocracy ^[27].

11. Pepecoin (PEP)

Pepecoin is a fork of Dogecoin using Scrypt, with AuxPoW merge mining starting at block 42,000 ^[19]. A mining-pool explainer states it launched on 30 January 2024 and that its reward starts at 500,000 coins, halving every 100,000 blocks until it settles at 10,000 after 600,000 blocks ^[18].

12. Shibacoin (SHIC)

Shibacoin is a fork of Dogecoin using Scrypt, with AuxPoW starting at block 24,000 ^[20]. Its launch date and reward schedule are not stated in the repository page we read, so this guide does not give them; see the project's own site and whitepaper.

13. Flopcoin (FLOP)

Flopcoin is a Dogecoin fork using Scrypt with 60-second blocks and a genesis on 9 December 2024 ^[21]. Its reward starts at 500,000 FLOP and halves every 100,000 blocks until it is fixed at 10,000 from block 600,000, which means its supply is unbounded ^[21]. Its site states that it can be merge-mined with Dogecoin, Litecoin and Pepecoin ^[22].

14. Earthcoin (EAC)

Earthcoin's repository describes a Scrypt coin derived from Litecoin with a 60-second block target and 13.5 billion coins in total; the reward averages about 10,000 EAC and halves every year, with a minimum of 1 EAC per block ^[23].

15. Other Scrypt-family coins in Scrypt Wallet

Scrypt Wallet also supports other coins from the wider Scrypt and Dogecoin family, including Meowcoin, NewYorkCoin, BBQCoin, Cyberyen, Fairbrix, CraftCoin and Bit (B1T), and DigiByte, which mines with several algorithms including Scrypt. This guide does not yet document their histories because we have not been able to verify them against each project's own pages; we would rather leave a gap than repeat unverified claims. Their live data is on the price dashboard.

16. How to use this guide

Merge-minable coins matter to miners because one Scrypt machine can earn several of them at once ^[4]. Use the merged mining explainer to understand the mechanism and the mining calculator to estimate income. When you evaluate any small coin in this family, apply the checklist in memecoin tokenomics: who can create supply, how deep the markets are, and how concentrated the holders are. Proof-of-work coins with fixed issuance rules are generally more predictable than tokens with a mint authority, but they are still small, volatile markets.

General education, not financial, tax or legal advice. Figures are schematic. Protocol parameters are cited to primary sources and can change; verify against the linked source before relying on them.