Elon Musk, Time’s Person of the Year 2021, has been an ardent advocate of cryptocurrencies and has often been one of the key factors behind the rise and fall of the value of cryptocurrencies.
Earlier this year, Musk had said that Tesla would be accepting Bitcoin as payment for purchasing cars, but later back-tracked citing climate concerns resulting from bitcoin mining. In May, meme-inspired cryptocurrency Dogecoin had been accepted by SpaceX, Musk’s space company, as payment for lunar missions scheduled next year. The relation between Dogecoin and Musk continues, as the technoking at Tesla said that it would be accepting Dogecoin as payment for merchandise on a test basis.
That’s right, you can now buy Tesla products with Dogecoin, the same cryptocurrency which had been called a “hustle” by Musk on “Saturday Night Live” (following which it lost more than one-third of its price, but that is another story).
This development, though, elevated the value of Dogecoin by a massive 24% to come at $0.195 after it was made public. Musk, in his usual self, announced the news via Twitter, saying that Tesla would be making some merchandise available with Doge, and see how it goes. Currently, Dogecoin is trading at $0.18.
Dogecoin has had a strong journey this year, fuelled mostly by Musk and his remarks on social media platforms – Musk even said that better for transactions, in an interview with Time magazine. The “people’s crypto” has risen to new heights – a rise of 5859% over the past year, according to the Coinbase website.
However, it is not known exactly what products will be available for purchase via Dogecoin – Tesla’s range of merchandise includes apparel, ‘Giga Texas’ belt buckles, mini models of its vehicles as well as limited-edition items such as the Cyberwhistle, (modeled after its much-awaited Cybertruck) and the Cyberquad for Kids.
