Tesla Billionaire Elon Musk Has Suddenly Sent The Price Of ‘Joke’ Bitcoin Rival Dogecoin Sharply Higher

Dogecoin DOGE , the meme-based, tongue-in-cheek bitcoin rival that’s a favorite of Tesla TSLA billionaire Elon Musk, has suddenly leaped higher—even as the bitcoin price dives.

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The dogecoin price, after rocketing up the crypto top ten by value last year only to crash back as doge mania receded, has again entered CoinMarketCap’s top ten.

Dogecoin’s rally has been sparked by reports Musk is nearing a deal to buy social network Twitter following his month-long assault on the company, with dogecoin traders betting Musk may integrate dogecoin into the service.

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Telsa CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly called for dogecoin, a “joke” rival to bitcoin, to reduce its … [+] fees and speed up its transaction time, helping the dogecoin price to soar.

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The dogecoin price has added 5% since this time yesterday after reports emerged overnight that Twitter is considering accepting Musk’s original offer to pay $54.20 per share in cash for the company, valuing it at $43 billion.

However, dogecoin remains down by some 80% from its 75 cent peak set in May last year ahead of Musk’s appearance on comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live.

Yesterday, Musk again shared his thoughts on how to improve the meme-based bitcoin rival dogecoin, sparking fresh speculation doge support could be added in to a Musk-controlled Twitter.

Dogecoin co-creator Billy Markus suggested “the more [dogecoin] can be used as a currency, the better,” called for it to be used as a “tipping currency,” and proposed an ethereum upgrade to improve dogecoin “utility.”

“First one definitely, second is nice to have and third isn’t needed, [in my opinion], Musk replied.

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The dogecoin price has fallen significantly from its all-time high of around 75 cents per doge, … [+] dropping far further than the bitcoin price which has lost around 40%.

Coinbase

Earlier this month, Musk said he’d target crypto scams and bots if he does manage to take Twitter private and also suggested Twitter Blue’s subscription fee could be payable in dogecoin.

“A top priority I would have is eliminating the spam and scam bots and the bot armies that are on Twitter,” Musk told TED curator Chris Anderson, speaking at the TED2022 conference in Vancouver. “They make the product much worse. If I had a dogecoin for every crypto scam I saw, we’d have 100 billion dogecoin.” When asked if Musk had regrets over “sparking a storm of excitement over dogecoin and where it’s gone,” Musk replied that he still likes both dogs and memes.

Last year, Musk proposed dogecoin increase its block time “10X, increases block size 10X and drops fee 100X,” which he claimed is “needed [for dogecoin] to become the currency of Earth”—and will mean it beats bitcoin “hands down.”