Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Tuesday announced that his electric automaker will accept cryptocurrency Dogecoin for merchandise.
Taking to Twitter, Musk, who supports cryptocurrency, said, "Tesla will make some merch buyable with Doge & see how it goes"
Following the news, Dogecoin jumped 24 per cent to $0.195, according to Reuters.
The EV maker sells merchandise such as apparel, belt buckle, mini models of its vehicles, quad bike 'Cyberquad' for children and 'Cyberwhistle' modelled after its much-awaited Cybertruck.
With a following of more than 66 million, Musk had asked users in May if they wanted Tesla to accept Dogecoin in a Twitter poll.
Earlier this year, Musk had led to fall in Bitcoin price, the largest cryptocurrency, after he had tweeted that Tesla had “suspended vehicle purchases using bitcoin,” out of concern over “rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining.”
However, later on, Musk said that Tesla would most “likely” resume acceptance of Bitcoin. In June, he confirmed that if Bitcoin mining was more eco-friendly then Tesla would once again begin to accept the cryptocurrency as payment. “When there's confirmation of reasonable (~50 per cent) clean energy usage by miners with a positive future trend, Tesla will resume allowing Bitcoin transactions,” Musk had tweeted.
Separately, on Monday, TIME magazine named Musk as the "2021 Person of the Year."
The magazine's profile describes Musk as a "player in robots and solar, cryptocurrency and climate, brain-computer implants to stave off the menace of artificial intelligence and underground tunnels to move people and freight at super speeds."
Apart from Tesla's CEO, Musk is also the founder and CEO of rocket company SpaceX, and leads brain-chip start-up Neuralink and infrastructure firm The Boring Company.
With agency inputs