Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk announced Tuesday (Dec. 14) that the electric car manufacturer will begin a trial run of accepting dogecoin as payment for merchandise, according to a Reuters report.
“Tesla will make some merch buyable with Doge & see how it goes,” Musk said in a tweet, sending the price of the meme-based cryptocurrency up 24% to more than 20 cents per coin early in the day.
Musk has called dogecoin the “people’s crypto” in previous tweets. His support of the digital currency has helped the meme coin jump 5,859% in the past year, according to Coinbase. Musk didn’t say in its what merchandise is eligible to be bought with dogecoin, but products run from $50 to $1,900.
Tesla sells apparel, “Giga Texas” belt buckles and mini models of its vehicles as well as limited-edition items such as the “Cyberwhistle,” modeled after the highly anticipated Cybertruck. The company recently launched a Cyberquad quad bike modeled after the truck for kids.
Musk told Time magazine in his recent interview for his 2021 Person of the Year designation that dogecoin is better for transactions than bitcoin, echoing a refrain he’s expressed many times in the past.
“Bitcoin is not a good substitute for transactional currency,” he said.
In May, Musk asked his 66 million-plus Twitter followers if they wanted Tesla to accept dogecoin and called the digital currency a “hustle” when he hosted “Saturday Night Live.” Tesla stopped accepting bitcoin for car purchases after about two months.
Related: Musk Calls on Dogecoin to Lower Fees for Consumers
In September, Musk said he thinks dogecoin fees should be reduced to make cheaper purchases for movie tickets and other smaller items.
AMC said earlier this year it will begin accepting cryptocurrencies for tickets and concessions at its theaters by the end of 2021, most recently adding Shiba Inu to the list.
Dogecoin co-creator Shibetoshi Nakamoto said the wider acceptance of the meme coin was a welcome development.
“[T]he crypto market finally seeing some green. I gotta say …” he tweeted.
“Super important for Doge fees to drop to make things like buying movie tix viable,” Musk replied.
After Musk’s announcement, Aron said the theater chain would be working to figure out how to accept dogecoin.
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