Dogecoin gains over 25% after Elon Musk says he might take it as payment for Tesla

GettyImages 1299388486 — Dogecoin is a 'meme' cryptocurrency, seemingly created as a joke
Yuriko Nakao/Getty

Meme cryptocurrency dogecoin gained over 25% in the past 24 hours.
The coin's value jumped after Elon Musk said he was looking into dogecoin as a crypto payment option for Tesla.
Tesla had suspended the option to pay for their cars with bitcoin over environmental concerns on Wednesday.
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Dogecoin gained over 25% within 24 hours after Elon Musk said he might accept it as a payment method for Tesla, after having stopped payments for his company's products in bitcoin over environmental concerns.

Dogecoin rose 25.7% to $0.538253 in the 24 hours to 03:57 E.T. according to CoinGecko. It initially jumped in value at 19:45 E.T. on Thursday after Elon Musk's tweet about considering the cryptocurrency as a payment method for Tesla.

"Working with Doge devs to improve system transaction efficiency. Potentially promising." he said.

Dogecoin is the fourth largest cryptocurrency in circulation based on market capitalization. After Musk's tweet, the value of the dogecoin market rose by over $10 billion to around $67 billion, as trading volume accelerated.

The token, which originally started as a joke and is therefore often described as a "meme coin," has rallied since early April and reached a record high of $0.731578 on May 8. It has made year-on-year gains of 20,987.6%.

Earlier in the week, Musk said his electric vehicle company Tesla would no longer accept bitcoin payments over environmental concerns. Bitcoin, which is the world's largest cryptocurrency, fell as much as 15% after Tesla's announcement and dragged crypto stocks down with it.

In his statement, Musk also said he would be looking into more environmentally friendly cryptocurrencies to use in place of bitcoin as he believed in crypto, but was concerned about the amount of fossil fuel used in the mining process.

On top of dogecoin, Musk may explore cryptocurrencies including ether, Cardano's ADA, XRP and Chia, all of which have a less significant environmental footprint compared to bitcoin.

Researchers and the crypto community are divided on bitcoin's environmental impact - Cathie Wood's Ark Invest published research on Thursday arguing bitcoin mining actually helps the environment, whereas Bank of America said earlier this year bitcoin uses more energy a year than American Airlines.

Tesla shares were last up 1.98% in premarket trading on Friday, after Musk's tweet about exploring dogecoin as a payment option.

Read the original article on Business Insider