‘Dogefather’ Elon Musk tells when he would create his own cryptocurrency – The Financial Express

Elon Musk said on Friday that he is working on Dogecoin development to “improve system transaction efficiency”. Image: Reuters

Tesla’s Elon Musk had earlier this week decried the “insane” amount of energy required for producing Bitcoin following his decision to suspend the use of Bitcoin to sell his electric cars. He had also reiterated his call for a “Carbon tax” (a fee imposed on the burning of coal, gas, and other carbon-based fuels) amid concerns around “rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel,” as per a statement tweeted by Musk on Thursday. While he might not use Bitcoin for transactions unless its mining moves to more sustainable energy, it is the Dogecoin that is increasingly being backed by Musk.

Reasons why Dogecoin “wins hands down” when compared to Bitcoin, according to Musk, included: Doge speeds up block time 10X, increases block size 10X & drops fee 100X, he tweeted on Sunday. For Musk, he is “the Dogefather” and “Dogecoin is the people’s crypto”. It is also less harsh on the environment than Bitcoin and is more affordable due to its high supply than the crypto king. But does that make it perfect crypto that Musk would want to stick to forever? Probably no and perhaps nobody can then tell which crypto would be better than Dogecoin for Musk. If it is not Dogecoin then Musk might go ahead and launch new crypto altogether.

“Only if Doge can’t do it. Big pain in the neck to create another one,” Musk tweeted on Sunday.

His tweet was in response to a suggestion for launching a crypto that does everything he wants technically. “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?” a user with a Twitter handle @lon_elon had said.

Importantly, Musk had on Friday said that he is working on Dogecoin development to “improve system transaction efficiency.” However, it wasn’t clear if he was referring to better speed, energy usage, or its usability, and more. Dogecoin’s price had declined nearly 22 per cent during the early US hours on Sunday after Musk called Dogecoin a ‘hustle’ on the American late-night comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live’s (SNL) satirical news programme Weekend Update. The ‘joke’ Dogecoin was trading at 52 Cents after peaking at 72 Cents on last week’s Saturday, as per Coindesk.