Tesla Boots Bitcoin But Retains Once-Joke Crypto Dogecoin As A Means Of Payment

Electric car maker Tesla has removed the source code that once permitted BTC payments. However, the Elon Musk-owned company is retaining the OG meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin (DOGE) as a payment option.

DOGE Accepted Payment Option For Tesla Merch

Crypto journalist Colin Wu drew attention to the rumors circulating on Crypto Twitter that claim both Bitcoin and Dogecoin are present on Tesla’s payment page source code. Upon further digging, Wu found that BTC and DOGE have been present in the EV maker’s source code since January of this year.

The Hong Kong-based reporter observed that Tesla did not remove the source code when it terminated the option to pay in BTC in May 2021. Tesla started accepting Bitcoin as a payment method for its electric cars in late March 2021 after buying $1.5 billion worth of the asset. The pilot proved short-lived following concerns about Bitcoin’s high energy usage and was soon dropped.

Wu examined Tesla’s payments page and discovered that the company had finally decided to retain Dogecoin — originally designed in 2013 as a joke and poke fun at Bitcoin — but ditched the world’s largest crypto by market capitalization.

“At present, Tesla has deleted ‘Bitcoin’ in the source code of its payment page, but still retains ‘Dogecoin,” Wu stated.

Neither Tesla nor Elon Musk has issued an official announcement concerning this move. Nevertheless, it doesn’t come as a surprise as Musk is a self-proclaimed Dogecoin fan. Besides Tesla, Musk has also previously indicated that his other multi-billion-dollar enterprise, Starlink, would also start allowing DOGE payments for subscriptions.

Tesla Still A Bitcoin Holder

Despite scrapping Bitcoin payments, Tesla is not all done with the cryptocurrency.

Its BTC stash remains intact for the fourth straight quarter, as ZyCrypto reported. Tesla still holds approximately $184 million in Bitcoin. The company has not added or sold any BTC since the second quarter of 2022, when it dumped over 30,000 bitcoins, which accounted for 75% of its total holdings, for a whopping $936 million.

BTC is down 1.4% for the week and is currently trading hands at $29,874, according to CoinGecko. But the top cryptocurrency has rocketed by more than 80% since the start of the year, as a result of several factors. Recent bullish events include the U.S. Federal Reserve hitting the pause button on the latest interest rate hike and Blackrock’s landmark application to list a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the US.

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• Source: https://zycrypto.com/tesla-boots-bitcoin-but-retains-once-joke-crypto-dogecoin-as-a-means-of-payment/