Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed today why he supports alternative cryptocurrency Dogecoin — and isn’t a huge fan of Bitcoin.
“My goal is to build stuff and make money and have fun,” Dogecoin cofounder Billy Markus wrote in a tweet on Thursday. “I’m used to the corporate establishment and don’t really see any meaningful break away from it — Bitcoin just gives power to new rich people.”
And that’s precisely “why I’m pro doge,” Musk replied on Twitter.
There’s a major debate raging online on whether blockchain — the potential driver of Web3 — and Bitcoin are truly decentralized or actually being governed from the shadows by a small group of individuals and corporations.
Ex-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey recently joined Musk in an anti-Web3 tirade on Twitter, arguing that “you don’t own ‘web3.’ The VCs and their LPs do. It will never escape their incentives. It’s ultimately a centralized entity with a different label.”
Musk piled own.
“Has anyone seen web3?” he wrote in a mocking reply tweet. “I can’t find it.”
The backlash from Dorsey’s comments was almost immediate, with a number of high profile crypto investors unfollowing him on the platform.
But Markus, Musk, and Dorsey may have a point. Bitcoin in particular isn’t all that decentralized, according to a recent study by the National Bureau of Economic Research, which showed that the top 10,000 bitcoin holders — the token’s “one percent,” as The Wall Street Journal put it — hold 5 million bitcoin, worth a staggering $232 billion.
For those keeping score, that’s 0.01 percent of all users holding 27 percent of the supply.
Dorsey’s comments were also met by fierce backlash from the Ethereum community after he implied the token wasn’t “truly secure and resilient” in a tweet on Tuesday.
“I’m not anti ETH,” the former Twitter CEO reiterated in a tweet two days later. “I’m anti-centralized, VC-owned, single point of failure, and corporate controlled lies.”
“If your goal is anti establishment, I promise you it isn’t Ethereum,” he added. “Don’t believe or trust me! Just look at the fundamentals.”
Unlike Ethereum and Bitcoin, Dogecoin is a bit of an oddball, a token that started as a joke. And to Musk, that’s the appealing part.
Musk has been one of the biggest buyers of crypto, with his electric car company Tesla investing some $1.5 billion in the currency earlier this year. Subsequent flip-flopping on his opinion of the token sent Bitcoin soaring — and eventually imploding — this year.
He also has had tremendous influence on the price of Dogecoin, sending it on an even rockier rollercoaster.
In other words, regardless of his outsider rhetoric, Musk is the establishment when it comes to Bitcoin and Dogecoin.
The billionaire CEO however has repeatedly warned that it’s not a serious way of investing money.
“The point was that Dogecoin was invented as a joke, as essentially to make fun of cryptocurrency,” he told paparazzi back in May, “and that’s why… I think there’s an argument that the most entertaining outcome is the most like ‘what would be the most ironic outcome?’”
The debate over whether crypto truly represents decentralization and anti-establishment will likely rage on for a while longer, with the likes of Musk or Dorsey’s comments leading the narrative — while also determining the shortterm fate of markets.
What effect their tweets will have on the future of Web3, a utopian vision of the next internet, is even less certain.
More on the saga: In Anti-Blockchain Twist, Elon Musk Slams Web3 as “Marketing Buzzword”
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