REUTERS/Mike Blake
- Elon Musk tweeted about “going all in on doge” and improving the network on Monday.
- Musk has halted bitcoin payments for Teslas and even hinted the company may sell its holdings.
- Many bitcoin bulls are angry with Musk for flirting with dogecoin, which they say is pointless.
- Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell.
Elon Musk tweeted about improving the dogecoin network on Sunday and said “obnoxious” bitcoin bulls made him want to go all-in on the joke cryptocurrency, before hinting Tesla may sell its bitcoin holdings.
Musk replied to a number of tweets with comments that suggest he believes dogecoin could become a serious cryptocurrency – despite being started as a prank in 2013.
The Tesla chief executive triggered a plunge in bitcoin on Sunday evening when he suggested the electric car company might sell its holdings, after buying $1.5 billion worth in January. He later clarified that it hadn’t sold any bitcoin.
After facing criticism over his stance on cryptocurrencies, he replied to one tweet saying: “Obnoxious threads like this make me want to go all in on Doge.”
Musk also responded to a tweet which said: “Elon is choosing $DOGE because Dogecoin is better than #Bitcoin in many fundamental ways.”
Musk replied: “Ideally, Doge speeds up block time 10X, increases block size 10X & drops fee 100X. Then it wins hands down.”
He added: “For those bad at math, 100X higher transaction volume with 100X lower fees means total fees earned stay same. Low fees & high volume are needed to become currency of Earth.”
Musk’s tweets came days after he announced Tesla would stop taking bitcoin as payment due to the “insane” amount of energy it takes to create new coins and secure the network.
The Tesla boss said in the same message he was looking for low-energy alternatives. Then on Thursday, he tweeted: “Working with Doge devs to improve system transaction efficiency. Potentially promising.”
Musk’s interest in dogecoin has angered many bitcoin fans, who see the meme token as undermining the case for cryptocurrencies.
One Twitter account tweeted Musk saying: “Your recent poorly informed criticism of #bitcoin + support for Doge may be the perfect troll…or you might actually believe this (God I hope not).”
Dogecoin critics argue the coin’s network has a number of supply flaws, such as the fact that here is no cap on the number that can be created, in particular.
Despite Musk’s tweets, dogecoin was down 4.9% in the 24-hour period to 7.30 a.m. ET to trade at $0.50479. The token was up close to 20,000% over the last year, however.
Bitcoin traded 8% lower at $45,259, more than 30% off the record high touched in April.
Powered by WPeMatico
