Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Saturday announced on Twitter that its supercharging station at Santa Monica will soon accept cryptocurrency Dogecoin as a mode of payment. Following the announcement, Dogecoin’s price witnessed upward movement.
In a tweet, Ryan Zohoury, founder of Tesla Console, said that only ten minutes after the new Santa Monica Superchargers was opened they were already full. Responding to this, Musk said that he has planned futuristic diner or drive-in theater at the Supercharging station, “and of course, you can pay in Ðoge.”
And, of course, you can pay in Ðoge
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 19, 2022
Dogecoin was created in 2013 by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer as a faster but “fun” alternative to Bitcoin. Initially, it started off as a satire on the numerous fraud crypto coins that had sprung up at the time. It takes its name and logo from a Shiba Inu meme that was viral several years ago.
This development comes as Musk announced in December that electric carmaker Tesla will accept Dogecoin for merchandise on a test basis.“Tesla will make some merch buyable with Doge and see how it goes,” he said in a tweet. Tesla sells merchandise such as apparel, belt buckle, mini models of its vehicles, quad bike ‘Cyberquad’ for kids and ‘Cyberwhistle’ modeled after its much-awaited Cybertruck.
In a recent interview with Time magazine, the Tesla and SpaceX chief endorsed Dogecoin over any other crypto coin. “The transaction value of Bitcoin is low and the cost per transaction is high. At least at a space level, it is suitable as a store of value. But fundamentally, Bitcoin is not a good substitute for transactional currency,” adding that even though Dogecoin was created as a silly joke, it is better suited for transactions.
Meanwhile, the Tesla CEO is a staunch supporter of Dogecoin. This became clear after a Twitter spat between Musk and Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao. The billionaire investor and founder of SpaceX raised concerns on behalf of Dogecoin holders regarding the recent DOGE problem at cryptocurrency exchange Binance.
