Elon Musk has announced that Tesla (TSLA) -0.82% will accept the meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin (DOGE) +13.33% for buying some of its merchandise.
"Tesla will make some merch buyable with Doge & see how it goes," tweeted Musk on Tuesday.
Tesla will make some merch buyable with Doge & see how it goes
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 14, 2021
This announcement has caused the price of Dogecoin to skyrocket 30%.
Dogecoin is a Japanese Shiba Inu dog-themed cryptocurrency that was originally launched in 2013 rather as a joke than as an investment. Elon Musk has long been a supporter of dogecoin. In May his Twitter followers were asked whether Tesla should accept Dogecoin and the majority of the internauts responded “yes”.
If Tesla starts accepting Dogecoin in payments, it won’t be the first company to decide to do so. An American basketball team – the Dallas Mavericks, which is owned by a big crypto fun Mark Cuban, started offering tickets and merchandise in return of the cryptocurrency.
Musk and Tesla are among the key figures driving the cryptocurrency market in 2021. The CEO of Tesla purchased $1.5 million Bitcoin (BTC) +2.74% earlier this year, and in March announced that Tesla would accept Bitcoin as a payment method for cars. He however changed his mind in May explaining that Bitcoin uses to much energy. His interest in Dogecoin grew in May when he withdrew from Bitcoin and started working with developers on its efficiency.
Elon Musk has recently decided to sell another $900 million of Tesla shares, bringing his total sales since November to nearly $13 billion.
The CEO of Tesla is currently the richest person in the world and Time Magazine chose him a Person of the Year. In the publication Musk was called "clown, genius, edgelord, visionary, industrialist, showman, [and] cad." (Business Insider, 2021)
*Stock percentage taken on 15.12.2021 at 10:35.
*Robertson, Harry (14. December 2021). Business Insider: Elon Musk says Tesla will start accepting dogecoin for some merchandise — sending the token soaring as much as 30%. Last viewed on 15.12.2021 on https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/elon-musk-tesla-crypto-dogecoin-merchandise-payment-meme-doge-tsla-2021-12
