Dogecoin value rises, Tesla declares accepting the crypto as payment

Dogecoin shares soared to over 18 percent on Tuesday following Tesla Inc. chief, Elon Musk’s announcement of the company’s altered tactic of accepting cryptocurrency payments for merchandise.

The announcement revealed on Twitter sent Dogecoin shares to heighten in valuation when most cryptocurrencies seem to be dropping in value. “Tesla will make some merch buyable with Doge & see how it goes,” the CEO said in his tweet.

The announcement instantly drove the meme coin to reach its latest augmentation in value of $0.19, with its latest high marking $0.22, according to CoinDesk as of the time of writing.

While its latest value is still far-fetched from cryptocurrencies’ all-time high of $0.71, this, however, signals a significant change for the dupe digital currency.

Initially created as a joke to highlight – what seemed at the time – the unrealistic aspect of the cryptocurrency market, but soon rose to success as a much more mainstream substitute to the original decentralized tokens, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Despite Dogecoin’s gradual value augmentation, the same cannot be said about the two pioneering cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin, for instance, currently holds a valuation of $47,162 compared to its latest 24-hour high of $48,536, indicating a 2.61 percent drop, according to CoinDesk, as of the time of writing.

To the crypto market, when Musk tweets, the market fluctuates. To Musk, each tweet dignifies his plan of heightening any cryptocurrency’s value, be it Bitcoin or Dogecoin.

In his Time magazine interview, the SpaceX chief emphasized his preferential lean towards Dogecoin over Bitcoin, saying, “fundamentally, Bitcoin is not a good substitute for transactional currency.”

“Even though it was created as a silly joke, dogecoin is better suited for transactions,” he added.

In the past, Tesla publicized that it will be accepting Bitcoin transactions for its electric vehicles, but this did not last, given the company halted back from cryptocurrency experiment the instant Bitcoin shares dropped.

While the billionaire has yet to release an official statement to support his latest tweet, it appears that his persistence lies in Dogecoin – and not Bitcoin – to be adopted as Tesla’s go-to decentralized method of payment.