Elon Musk pointed to the possibility that Tesla might accept Dogecoin as a payment method in the future. This came during a public interaction at the Berlin Gigafactory. Musk’s positive response caused a surge in Dogecoin’s price, rising by 6.4%. He previously supported Dogecoin for its popularity among the public contrasting it with Bitcoin’s support mainly from the wealthy. Tesla already accepted DOGE for merchandise purchases since January 2022.
Tesla hints at DOGE payment activation
Elon Musk reportedly hinted Tesla could accept Dogecoin (DOGE) as an official payment method “at some point”. Musk was interacting with the public on March 13 at the Berlin Gigafactory, a Tesla manufacturing plant when an audience member asked if Tesla could be purchased using DOGE in the near future. Musk responded positively by saying, “At some point I think we should enable that.”
Investors jumped on Musk’s response and the token price soared. Dogecoin reacted by jumping from $0.172 to $0.188 and now standing at $0.181 at the time of writing. This marks a 6.4% increase as the video gains traction on X.
Musk’s take on DOGE
The Tesla CEO said fans can still use DOGE to buy Tesla merchandise and reiterates “Dogecoin to the moon.”
Musk first endorsed DOGE after Tesla Gigafactory employees urged the CEO to support Dogecoin as an official mode of payment. A similar request was made to him at SpaceX by visitors demanding support for Dogecoin. This ultimately was accepted as he said, “Doge is people’s crypto, so I will support it.”
He says Bitcoin got a lot of support from rich people. So, he wants to support a crypto that’s more popular with the general public.
Tesla began accepting Dogecoin payments for company merchandise on Jan. 14, 2022. The company said then that it only supported Dogecoin payments and “non-Dogecoin digital assets sent to Tesla will not be returned to the purchaser.”
In anticipation of its upcoming payments feature, Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) has created an ‘XPayments’ account, sparking speculation about the implementation of cryptocurrencies.
There is anticipation that the X app will introduce in-app payment services by mid-2024. There’s no word yet on whether the feature will support payments beyond traditional fiat currencies or if Musk will mainstream Dogecoin like his fans want.
