Elon Musk asks Twitter followers if Tesla should accept Dogecoin
The “Dogefather” is once again putting one of crypto’s hottest digital coins of the moment front and centre on his Twitter feed.
On Tuesday, Elon Musk posted a poll on his Twitter account asking his 53.9 million followers: “Do you want Tesla to accept Doge?”
Do you want Tesla to accept Doge?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 11, 2021
The Twitter poll comes just days after the Tesla and SpaceX chief called Dogecoin a “hustle” during his guest host appearance on Saturday Night Live – a United States comedy sketch show.
That comment took the air out of a stunning rally in Dogecoin this year that saw the meme coin – known by its logo featuring a Shiba Inu dog face – rocket 13,000 percent from January 1 to its all-time high of $0.69 last Wednesday.
One Dogecoin is currently worth around $0.48, according to CoinMarketCap.
Musk, a fervent supporter of cryptocurrencies, has this year inspired big market-moving swings in the price of digital coins, including Dogecoin and Bitcoin.
In January, Bitcoin surged when he posted #bitcoin to his Twitter feed. His Midas crypto touch was unleased again in February after Tesla disclosed in regulatory filings that it had bought $1.5bn of Bitcoin and that people could use the cryptocurrency to purchase Teslas electric vehicles.
While Musk’s boosting of Bitcoin has been accompanied by serious moves to hasten the world’s most popular cryptocurrency’s evolution towards becoming a mainstream form of payment, his tweets on Dogecoin – which started as a joke – have been more playful in nature.
There is a massive difference between the two coins. Since last fall, Bitcoin has hit several key milestones towards becoming a mainstream form of payment and has garnered serious interest from heavy-hitting Wall Street investors who believe it will change global finance. Some also see it as a viable store of value that can compete with gold.
SpaceX launching satellite Doge-1 to the moon next year
– Mission paid for in Doge
– 1st crypto in space
– 1st meme in spaceTo the mooooonnn!!https://t.co/xXfjGZVeUW
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 9, 2021
There is also a limit on how many Bitcoins can be created. That finite supply helps keep long-term inflation in check.
Dogecoin, by contrast, started as a joke in 2013. There is no limit on how many Dogecoins can be created, and it is rarely used as a form of payment.
In February, Musk posted that he had bought Dogecoin for his son “so he can be a toddler hodler” – crypto slang for “Hold On For Dear Life”, and acknowledging the extreme volatility that is a hallmark of crypto prices.
Musk has also anointed himself the “Dogefather”.
But he has injected some sobering risk assessment into crypto tweets, telling his followers on Friday: “Cryptocurrency is promising, but please invest with caution!”
The Tesla chief’s Tuesday poll on Dogecoin received over 2.3 million responses so far. On Saturday, Musk tweeted that the meme coin would be used to pay for a SpaceX mission to the moon next year.
