Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and crypto’s biggest influencer, has increased interest in the crypto market once again after announcing that SpaceX will soon accept Dogecoin (DOGE) as payment.
“Tesla merch can be bought with Doge, soon SpaceX merch too.”
Musk said in a tweet on 27 May 2022
This is not the first time Musk has announced the acceptance of cryptocurrency. The electric car company has already accepted Bitcoin (BTC) for booking Tesla cars and the company has said that they hold digital assets worth $1.26 billion on its balance sheet for the year ending March 2022.
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Tesla started booking cars with BTC for a few months but has to hold it citing environmental concerns. Then, Elon even asked the miners to move towards green energy for mining BTC, so that he can again start booking with crypto.
Musk believes in crypto
Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) was founded by Elon Musk in 2002 with the goal to reduce space transportation costs and help humans to colonize Mars. The company based in Hawthorne, California, currently manufactures space rockets and provides space transportation services, and is a communications corporation.
In a virtual meeting that also included Twitter founder, Jack Dorsey, Musk confirmed that he personally holds only BTC, Ethereum (ETH), and DOGE and believed that crypto can become an alternative to the current financial system, as it is not secure and takes days to process. During the conversation, he supported BTC and said that this technology can be used to solve the problem of centralization in the banking sector.
On 14 January 2022, Tesla announced that it would accept DOGE for some merchandise. Musk’s tweet on that day reads, “Tesla merch buyable with Dogecoin.” Just after the announcement, DOGE immediately surged by over 10% but lost most of it by the day’s end. The price of the DOGE was trading at around $0.1913.
Tesla’s shop now has a few items that can only be bought with DOGE. This includes Cyberwhistle, which costs 645 DOGE, and Cybertruck Graffiti Cuffed Beanie which costs 440 DOGE today.
Dogecoin
Launched in December 2013, Dogecoin, an open-source digital currency was forked from Litecoin and launched as a meme token by Billy Markus from Portland, Oregon, and Jackson Palmer from Sydney, Australia. So far, over 132.67 billion DOGE is under circulation with a market capitalization of $10.89 billion with a 24 hours trading volume of over $773 million.
DOGE has released its total supply but has not yet revealed its maximum supply, making it very risky to own, as more DOGE can be created.
Close to 4.2 million people hold DOGE as of March 2022, which has been listed on many exchanges making it one of the most sought cryptos in today’s time.
Musk is also looking to increase crypto adoption by accepting it in more of its companies. After the SpaceX announcement, when a user asked whether users will also be able to pay Starlink subscriptions via DOGE, Musk replied in the tweet: “Maybe one day.”
That means that Musk is very positive about adding more companies to accept DOGE.
Starlink project potentials for crypto
Starlink project is a satellite internet constellation operated by SpaceX with a vision to provide low-latency broadband internet in remote and rural locations across the globe. So far it provides satellite internet access coverage to over 400,000 subscribers based in 32 countries. Recently, it shipped Starlink terminals to Ukraine during the 2022 Russian invasion.
The company is now planning for global coverage. It launched its first satellites in 2019 and is aiming to launch 48,000 satellites in the next few years to expand its global reach. As of May 2022, Starlink currently has over 2400 mass-produced small satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO), which communicate with designated ground transceivers.
Other than this, any tweet from Musk on crypto brings in huge traction. He has even sent cryptic messages that help many new crypto projects rise many times. Musk holds a lot of power when it comes to bringing traction to crypto projects, and this announcement is just one example of his company’s actions.
Musk plays very Kleverly when it comes to crypto and one could easily believe that in days not far, Starlink will announce DOGE acceptance for its services.
