Elon Musk, the dogecoin-backing Telsa billionaire who sent shockwaves through the bitcoin, crypto and tech world when he revealed he’d bought around 9% of Twitter this month, has posted a flurry of improvement suggestions in recent days.
Amid a Twitter thread that called for everyone who signed up for Twitter’s $3 per month paid service, Twitter Blue, to “get an authentication checkmark,” Musk added, “maybe even an option to pay in doge?”—renewing his support for the meme-based bitcoin rival after its price has crashed dramatically from its 2021 highs.
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Tesla billionaire Elon Musk has become an activist investor in Twitter and has proposed adding the … [+]
Musk’s dogecoin payment suggestion was met with enthusiasm from many long-time dogecoin supporters, cheered by crypto Youtuber and dogecoin fan Matt Wallace and one of dogecoin’s founders, Billy Markus, replying “yes, please.”
The dogecoin price has surged higher over the last month, climbing around 30% after getting a boost when Musk revealed his Twitter stake as dogecoin backers bet Musk could integrate the tongue-in-cheek cryptocurrency into Twitter. The bitcoin price has added just 8% over the last month, despite a hotly-anticipated bitcoin conference, while the ethereum price has risen 20%.
Last year, the dogecoin price rocketed to an all-time high of over 70 cents, up from a mere fraction of a cent just a few months earlier, largely fueled by Musk and other high-profile investors and influencers. Musk speculated dogecoin could integrate with ethereum and “beat bitcoin hands down.” The dogecoin price has since crashed back to around 15 cents per doge.
Musk—who named dogecoin as his favorite cryptocurrency back in 2019 and was voted the memecoin’s “CEO” in a Twitter poll—has repeatedly called for dogecoin to reduce its transaction times and cut its fees for it to be adopted as a mainstream payment alternative.
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The dogecoin price has rocketed higher this past month, leaving the bitcoin price and the ethereum … [+]
It’s not the first time that Musk has experimented with dogecoin payments. Musk, after adding billions of dollars worth of bitcoin to Tesla’s balance sheeting earlier last year, created an option for Tesla customers to buy merchandise using dogecoin—following in the footsteps of celebrity investor Mark Cuban who allowed fans of his NBA team, the Dallas Mavericks, to pay with dogecoin last year.
Musk had previously added an option to buy a Tesla with bitcoin but suddenly removed it last year, citing bitcoin’s sky-high energy requirements.
