On Tuesday (April 2), Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, commented about what might be his favorite cryptocurrency—Dogecoin (DOGE).
Dogecoin, which was initially released on 6 December 2013, as a “fun and friendly internet currency.” It was created by Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer. It is “a decentralized, peer-to-peer digital currency” that has as its mascot “Doge”, a Shiba Inu (a Japanese breed of dog). Since then, its popularity has substantially increased to the point that it is currently the 25th most valuable cryptocurrency, with a market cap of around $372 milion.
On Monday (April Fool’s Day), the people behind the Twitter account of Dogecoin, created the following poll:
We have listened to your concerns. We have decided that Dogecoin does need a CEO. Someone who can lead us into the future while maintaining the core values of what we are.
Below are the candidates, vote wisely.@VitalikButerin @SatoshiLite @elonmusk @MarshallHayner
— Dogecoin (@dogecoin) April 1, 2019
Then, on Tuesday, when Elon Musk, who had called Bitcoin’s structure “quite brillaint” in a podcast interview in February, found out about the results of this poll (which at the time had him 16% of the second place candidate), he sent out the following tweet:
Dogecoin might be my fav cryptocurrency. It’s pretty cool.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 2, 2019
Later that day, the Dogecoin account sent out the following tweet to let their newest fan know that he was now Dogecoin’s (honorary) CEO:
Looks like you’re the CEO now @elonmusk, DM us where to email the access codes 😀 pic.twitter.com/xaftsRZ8MA
— Dogecoin (@dogecoin) April 2, 2019
Less than two hours later, Musk sent out this tweet to show how cool he thinks Dogecoin is:
Dogecoin rulz pic.twitter.com/flWWUgAgLU
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 2, 2019
A few minutes later, Palmer, who owns the “Dogecoin.com” domain name but distanced himself from the crypto scene (with “an extended leave of absence”) in April 2015, sent out the following tweet to make fun of Musk:
Am considering selling https://t.co/fkJ7AkqCIj for $4.20B. Funding (not yet) secured.
— Jackson Palmer (@ummjackson) April 2, 2019
Palmer was referring to this August 2018 tweet that got Musk in trouble with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC):
Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 7, 2018
Although Musk temporarily changed his Twitter bio to say “CEO of Dogecoin”, at press time, it seems that he has changed to read “Former CEO of Dogecoin” as you can see via the following screenshot:
According to CryptoCompare, DOGE is currently trading at $0.003144, up 25.09% in the past 24-hour period: