JAKARTADAILY.ID - Tesla Inc chief Elon Musk said on his Twitter handle on Tuesday that the electric car company will accept dogecoin as a form of payment for merchandise as a test.
The statement shot the meme-based cryptocurrency up over 20%, while tesla's shares were down 3% in early trading due to broader market declines.
However, Musk did not explain in detail which merchandise could be purchased with the cryptocurrency. With the current merchandise line of Tesla, it could be for items priced from $50 to $1,900.
Some of them include the apparel 'Giga Texas' belt buckles, mini models of Tesla vehicles, the 'Cyberwhistle' modeled after the Cybertruck, and a newly-launched kid's quad bike "Cyberquad".
The decision also came after Musk opened a poll for his 66 million Twitter followers on whether or not dogecoin should be accepted as a form of payment at Tesla.
"I view it as being mercurial or just making fun," said Tom Martin, senior portfolio manager at Globalt Investment who considered Musk was not serious with the decision.
However, Musk, named by Time Magazine as "Person of the Year 2021" on Monday, had been known to be supportive of cryptocurrency for the past few years, in particular dogecoin. He finds the cryptocurrency "better for transactions", as reported by Reuters on Tuesday (December 14, 2021).
He had called dogecoin the "people's crypto", skyrocketing the cryptocurrency to 5,859% in one year, based on the data provided by the Coinbase website.
"His latest announcement will usher in a new era of commerce and trailblaze a path for altcoins to expand their use case," commented Chris Kline, co-founder of Bitcoin IRA, on the matter.
