Key takeaways:
- Dogecoin is now accepted as a payment method on Tesla’s online shopping platform, but not all items are purchasable with DOGE as of yet
- Dogecoin consumes nearly 6000 times less energy per transaction than Bitcoin, which was removed as a payment method in mid-2021 due to environmental concerns
- The price of DOGE jumped more than 10% on the news and reached its peak monthly value
You can now buy (some) Tesla merch with Dogecoin
Tesla CEO Elon Musk held to his word and earlier today announced that Dogecoin is now an accepted payment method on the leading car manufacturer’s online shopping platform. Exactly a month ago, Elon Musk called Dogecoin a better payment method than Bitcoin when doing a TIME’s magazine person of the year interview, which led to DOGE gaining 20% in the span of a single day. At the time, Musk explained that Dogecoin’s high transaction flow and slightly inflationary nature incentivize people to spend it, and not hoard it as is the case with Bitcoin, which effectively makes it an excellent payment method.
As of now, there is a limited selection of Tesla merchandise that is purchasable with DOGE and there is no information available regarding the possibility of using the world’s largest memecoin to purchase vehicles in the future.
This is not the first time that the leading electric car company accepts cryptocurrency as a payment method. In March 2021, Tesla announced the support for Bitcoin, which was removed after less than two months, due to environmental concerns surrounding the power-hungry Bitcoin mining industry. At the time, Musk tweeted that the company will likely reverse its decision once “mining transitions to more sustainable energy.”
The Dogecoin network consumes just a fraction of Bitcoin’s platforms, despite both digital currencies employing an energy-intensive Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism. According to data from TRG Datacenters, Dogecoin consumes only 0.12 KWh per transaction, nearly 6000 times less than Bitcoin’s 707 KWh per transaction.
The price of DOGE jumped more than 10% on the news and has reached monthly and cycle highs of $0.2177 earlier today.
