Elon Musk reveals the cryptocurrency he ‘mainly’ supports after Tesla dumps Bitcoin amid cryptocurrency crash
Tesla
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The bitcoin price was helped to never-before-seen highs by Musk adding $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin to Tesla’s balance sheet early last year. However, in the midst of a brutal bitcoin price crash, the company sold almost all of its bitcoin last month due to financial uncertainty (although bitcoin and crypto are suddenly braced for a $10 trillion earthquake).
Now Musk has reiterated his support for the meme-based dogecoin, praising its “transactional throughput” and that it doesn’t take itself “too seriously” – despite a strong warning that some cryptocurrencies “may fail.”
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Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, has helped the dogecoin price skyrocket in recent years amid a … [+]
“I mainly support doge, honestly, because I think doge has the memes and the dogs, and it seems to have a sense of humor and doesn’t take itself too seriously,” Musk, Musk, who last year revealed that he personally owns dogecoin , bitcoin and ethereum, said during a recent interview on the Full Send Podcast.
Originally created as “a joke”, dogecoin has risen up the crypto rankings over the past 18 months after fading into relative obscurity in previous years. The backing of Musk and other high-profile investors such as Mark Cuban pushed dogecoin’s price to about 70 cents last year ahead of Musk’s much-hyped appearance on the comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live. The price of dogecoin has since collapsed to just 6 cents, down more than 90%.
After Tesla bought bitcoin last year, Musk began a long-running campaign to upgrade dogecoin so it could “beat bitcoin hands down.” In June, dogecoin developers released an update that improves security and efficiency.
“I think actually, strangely, even though doge was just designed to be like this ridiculous joke currency, the actual total transaction capacity of doge is much higher than bitcoin,” Musk said. Earlier this year, Musk said he still buys the bitcoin rival joke and will continue to support it.
In May, Musk announced that his rocket company SpaceX will follow Tesla in accepting dogecoin for goods. Tesla began accepting dogecoin for the purchase of goods in January.
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The Dogecoin price has collapsed over the past year despite Elon Musk’s support, collapsing with … [+]
In June, Musk and his companies Tesla and SpaceX were hit with a $258 billion lawsuit alleging they are part of a racketeering scheme to pump up the dogecoin price.
Meanwhile, Musk unloaded nearly $7 billion worth of Tesla stock in the past week, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, just months after he said he had no plans to sell any more Tesla stock.
