Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced on Friday that the electric carmaker will accept the meme-based digital currency dogecoin in exchange for merchandise.
“Tesla merch buyable with Dogecoin,” Musk said in a tweet.
Dogecoin soared to $0.20 in response to the news.
Tesla sells apparel, ‘Giga Texas’ belt buckles, and mini models of its vehicles, as well as quirky limited-edition items like the ‘Cyberwhistle,’ which is based on the company’s much-anticipated Cybertruck.
Following his support for Bitcoin, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has now endorsed the Dogecoin cryptocurrency, even referring to himself as the “Dogefather.”
Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency that was created by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer who wanted to create a payment system. Already, nearly 113 billion coins have been mined.
Furthermore, Musk previously confirmed that the company will “most likely” resume accepting Bitcoin payments after some due diligence on improvements to the energy mix used to mine the cryptocurrency.
“I wanted a little bit more due diligence to confirm that the percentage of renewable energy usage is most likely at or above 50 per cent, and that there is a trend toward increasing that number, and if so Tesla would resume accepting bitcoin,” Musk said.
“Most likely the answer is that Tesla would resume accepting bitcoin,” he added.
Musk also confirmed that, in addition to Tesla’s investment, he has a significant personal investment in bitcoin, as well as smaller Ethereum and Dogecoin holdings.
