Elon Musk announced that Tesla will accept Dogecoin as payment for some of its merchandise, saying: “Tesla will make some merch buyable with Doge & see how it goes.”
Dogecoin is a meme-inspired cryptocurrency that exploded by at least 20% after Elon said Tesla will accept it.
Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer initially created Dogecoin as a joke in 2013, as its branding is taken from the Japanese Shiba Inu dog which inspired the original “doge” meme.
After Musk tweeted frequently about Dogecoin and talked about it as his favorite digital coin, while also mentioning it in an appearance on “Saturday Night Live,” amateur investors also started investing in this coin, which led its price to go higher and higher.
In just 5 months, Dogecoin went from being worth just a fraction of a penny to achieving a record-high price above 74 cents. But since then, the coin is down over 70% from its all-time high.
On the other side, Brad Garlinghouse, the CEO of crypto firm Ripple is not convinced that Dogecoin is good for the market.
Some investors also say that Dogecoin shouldn’t be taken seriously, as it is a phenomenon similar to “meme stocks” like GameStop and AMC.
But there is another so-called meme token nicknamed “Dogecoin killer,” as it is currently the 13th-biggest coin by market value, having briefly surpassed dogecoin at one point. So Dogecoin has also found a new rival called Shiba Inu.