Days after suspending cryptocurrency Bitcoin as a payment mode to buy Tesla vehicles, the company’s billionaire CEO Elon Musk has indicated that he may come up with his own cryptocurrency in the near future. But there’s a catch. While responding to a Twitter user who asked why the CEO was not launching his own cryptocurrency that does everything he wants technically, Musk replied on Saturday if Dogecoin can’t do it, he just might.
“Why not just make a crypto from scratch that does everything you want technically and has a lot of dev support and doesn’t have high concentration of ownership at least initially?" the user asked.
Why not just make a crypto from scratch that does everything you want technically and has a lot of dev support and doesn’t have high concentration of ownership at least initially?— Long Elon (@long_elon) May 16, 2021
Only if Doge can’t do it. Big pain in the neck to create another one.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2021
Earlier last week, Musk highlighted the environmental harm of continuing use of energy-intensive cryptos like Bitcoin- a cryptocurrency that the SpaceX CEO had backed earlier. He announced that Tesla which used to accept payments for its car in Bitcoin earlier in March, will be discontinuing the practice.
Energy usage trend over past few months is insane https://t.co/E6o9s87trw pic.twitter.com/bmv9wotwKe— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2021
Musk had also revealed that he has been working with the creators of Dogecoin - the meme-crypto with the face of a Shiba Inu – in order to increase the energy efficacy of system transactions.
Working with Doge devs to improve system transaction efficiency. Potentially promising.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2021
According to data centre provider TRG, Dogecoin consumes 0.12-kilowatt-hours of electricity per transaction compared with 707 for bitcoin. Musk had denounced the “insane" amount of energy used to produce bitcoin, which has pushed bitcoin lower in the recent trades. Recently, Dogecoin co-creator Billy Markus claimed that he created the crypto in just two hours and did not think of its environmental impact. Bitcoin has been facing criticism from Tesla investors and environmental campaigners about the way bitcoins are created or “mined".
Following Musk’s tweets, Cryptocurrency markets have seen a drop in the price of Bitcoin as it suffered a huge dent in its rally and slid to a 2-1/2-month low on Thursday. Reportedly, after Musk’s tweet, the Bitcoin dropped to more than 11 per cent and was trading at nearly $50,000.
Dogecoin- the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market value, rose 20% to 52 cents on Friday according to Binance and last traded at $0.4825. Various companies are accepting Dogecoin for payment and its supply is unlimited.
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