The meme-inspired cryptocurrency Dogecoin is reaching new heights, literally.
Elon Musk and cryptocurrency go a long way back, with the “Technoking of Tesla” buying $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin and announcing that Tesla would soon accept it as a form of payment. According to him, cryptocurrency has a “good chance” of becoming what he called “the future currency of the Earth.”
On Monday, this relationship reached new heights after the announcement of “DOGE-1 Mission to the Moon”, paid entirely in Dogecoin.
Yes, you read it right. Musk’s revolutionary space company SpaceX will be embarking on a Moon voyage in 2022, carrying a cubesat (a 40kg miniature satellite used for space research) on a Falcon 9 rocket, and will be paid entirely in Dogecoin, announced Canadian company Geometric Energy Corporation (GEC), which will lead the ‘DOGE-1’ mission. The mission’s financial value was not stated. In that case, Musk’s tweet in April that SpaceX was going to put a “literal Dogecoin on the literal moon” will come true.
According to Tom Ochinero, VP of Commercial Sales, SpaceX, the mission would demonstrate the application of cryptocurrency beyond the orbit of the earth and set the foundation for interplanetary commerce. It would also be the first-ever commercial lunar payload in human history that would be paid entirely with Dogecoin, or any form of cryptocurrency, in particular.
“Having officially transacted with DOGE for a deal of this magnitude, Geometric Energy Corporation and SpaceX have solidified DOGE as a unit of account for lunar business in the space sector,” said Geometric Energy’s Chief Executive Officer Samuel Reid.
According to the GEC, Dogecoin has proven to be a “fast, reliable, and cryptographically secure digital currency that operates when traditional banks cannot and is sophisticated enough to finance a commercial Moon mission in full. It has been chosen as the unit of account for all lunar business between SpaceX and Geometric Energy Corporation and sets precedent for future missions to the Moon and Mars.”
The announcement comes soon after SpaceX had launched a fleet of Starlink satellites on the record 10th flight of a Falcon 9 rocket. It also comes after Dogecoin lost more than a third of its price owing to Musk calling it a ‘hustle’ during his guest-host spot on the “Saturday Night Live” comedy sketch TV show.
Musk is also responsible for raising the price of Dogecoin in the past few months with his tweets, which resulted in Dogecoin soaring by more than 800% over the last month, with its total market value rising above $70 billion, according to cryptocurrency data tracker CoinGecko.com.
Dogecoin is now the fourth-biggest cryptocurrency in the world.
