Tesla to accept Dogecoin for merch, sparks rally in token

New Delhi: Elon Musk, the proclaimed Dogefather, took to Twitter and again fueled the rally in Dogecoin through his tweet.

The mercurial technocrat ignited the meme coin as his company Tesla was eyeing to make some merchandise buyable with Dogecoins and see the work in progress over it.

A tweet from the Tesla boss skyrocketed the price of Dogecoin. The largest meme token zoomed 22 per cent in a jiffy to $0.195 from $0.156. However, it pared some gains after a few minutes of the tweet.



"Elon did bat for the suitability of Dogecoin for payment transactions in the recent Time magazine interview. His tweet, therefore, did not surprise many," said Sharat Chandra, a Blockchain and Emerging Tech Evangelist.

"Musk’s tweet has propelled Dogecoin prices, and it has dethroned even Polkadot and Terra by market cap and may dethrone XRP," he added.

According to Coinmarketcap, Dogecoin, the only token to trade with gains among the top 10 names, was commanding a market cap close to $26 billion at 16.35 IST on Tuesday.

Musk was named Time magazine’s 'Person of the Year for 2021' and said cryptocurrency Dogecoin is better for transactions than Bitcoin.

Musk considers Doge as an alternative to payments as it has the potential to become an alternative mode of payment due to its speed per transaction, said Dileep Seinberg, Founder & CEO, Think chain, a Blockchain and Crypto consulting firm.

Elon Musk was the early founder of the payment company PayPal, and he is not a newbie in the payment fintech business.

"Bitcoin is a costly affair in terms of the transaction, whereas Dogecoin offers the most affordable solutions," Seinberg added. "Dogecoin is likely to gain prominence in the cryptocart and may move higher notches in the next few months."

Musk, known for his cryptocurrency endorsements, reiterated his holdings limited to Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin, in October.