Tesla now takes dogecoin payments for merch, but not cars

Tesla made waves about a year ago when it started selling electric cars for bitcoin. Separately, Elon Musk was promoting dogecoin, a meme cryptocurrency that saw a meteoric rise as a result. Since then, the Tesla exec confirmed that he was looking into making dogecoin a viable payment option for online goods. That was back in May. After that, we saw AMC and Nothing show interest in dogecoin payments for goods like movie tickets and wireless earphones.

Fast-forward to mid-January 2022, and Tesla has started accepting dogecoin payments for merchandise. But you can buy an actual Tesla car using the popular cryptocurrency.

Musk and bitcoin

Elon Musk’s decision to accept bitcoin payments undoubtedly helped the bitcoin surge in the first half of 2021. At the time, the world’s most prominent cryptocurrency was reaching new all-time high valuations. But it took less than two months for Tesla to change its mind. Musk announced that bitcoin payments aren’t eco-friendly enough and stopped taking payments.

That was in mid-May, just as the price of bitcoin started a massive drop. In two weeks, bitcoin tanked by about 50%, all the way down to $30,000 per coin. Dogecoin and every other cryptocurrency dropped alongside bitcoin.

Tesla taking dogecoin payments for goods isn’t exactly a surprise. Musk’s SpaceX started taking dogecoin payments in May, just as the coin was dropping in value. SpaceX will take the doge meme to a whole new level by sending a DOGE-1 satellite to the moon.

Tesla and dogecoin payments

Dogecoin was trading at around $0.19 at the time of this writing after hitting a high of $0.215 early on Friday. Dogecoin closed at $0.171 on Thursday. About a year ago, the coin was topping $0.01. In early May 2021, Dogecoin topped at around $0.73, with Tesla’s CEO in part responsible for the surge.

Musk announced on Twitter the decision to accept dogecoin payments for Tesla goods. The dogecoin support is already live on the site, as seen in the image above. The dogecoin price factors in shipping and tax.

You can buy the Cyberquad for Kids for 12,020 doge ($2,320), the Giga Texas Belt Buckle for 835 doge ($161), and the Cyberwhistle for 300 doge ($58). Outside the US, Tesla sells the S3XY Mug for 150 doge ($29) in the UK. That means dogecoin support might be coming to various countries where Tesla is present. Considering the high volatility that impacts cryptocurrency trading, it’s likely these prices will see fluctuations depending on the cost of dogecoin. But it looks like Tesla is ready to experiment with more cryptocurrencies than bitcoin.

However, it’s unclear how long the dogecoin payment for Tesla good will last. We’ll have to see whether Musk is happy with doge’s impact on the environment compared to bitcoin. Or whether he’ll want something other than dogecoin for Tesla and SpaceX.