Elon Musk announced that Tesla will start to accept Doge, a meme cryptocurrency, to buy some merchandise on its website.
It’s the first time Tesla has accepted crypto as payment since a reversal earlier this year.
Over the last year, Tesla has been delving deep into the cryptocurrency world. Earlier this year, Tesla invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin.
Shortly after, the automaker started accepting the cryptocurrency as payment on new vehicles.
Later, CEO Elon Musk even talked about the potential of Tesla starting to accept Dogecoin as payment for its vehicles.
However, a few days later, Tesla took a step back with crypto by removing the Bitcoin payment option. The company noted concerns over the energy needs of the Bitcoin network:
Tesla has suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin. We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel.
This is a concern that many Tesla community members shared when Tesla first announced its Bitcoin investment, and many were angered by the fact that the company didn’t think about it in the first place.
At the time, Tesla noted that they were not selling their stake in Bitcoin and that they planned to resume taking Bitcoin payments once the network shows a higher mix of renewable energy.
Earlier this summer, Musk said that he believes Tesla will resume taking Bitcoin payment as he sees improvements in the energy mix of Bitcoin mining.
Tesla has yet to resume taking payment with Bitcoin, but Musk announced on Twitter today that Tesla will accept Doge for “some merch” on its online store:
“Tesla will make some merch buyable with Doge & see how it goes.”
It sounds like the automaker will be testing the waters by accepting Doge as payment starting with its online shop, which sells Tesla apparel and accessories.
Dogecoin, or Doge, is a cryptocurrency that was started as a joke to make fun of the cryptocurrency space.
Musk has taken a liking to Doge, saying that it would be ironic that a joke currency becomes a real currency.
He has often promoted Doge on Twitter and some accused him of pumping the cryptocurrency.
The CEO admitted that he holds “some Dogecoin” and responded to the criticism by saying that he “might pump, but he doesn’t dump.”
Doge prices have been known to jump greatly when Musk tweets about it, and after he regularly talked about the memecoin earlier this year, its value shot up to record highs.
The cryptocurrency has now a market capitalization of $25 billion.
It lost 40% in value in the last six months, but it jumped 20% this morning on Musk’s announcement that Tesla will be accepting it as payment.
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