Elon Musk, who has recently alienated much of the bitcoin and cryptocurrency community, has reaffirmed his support for meme-based cryptocurrency dogecoin.
The price of dogecoin has exploded this year, rising nearly 10,000% since October 2020 and propelling the memecoin into the top ten cryptocurrency rankings, aided by Musk’s erratic Twitter persona.
In comparison, the price of bitcoin has increased 400% in the last year, with much of the increase occurring after Musk revealed Tesla had purchased $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin at the start of the year.
Musk agreed that dogecoin miners, who secure the network in exchange for freshly minted coins, need to keep their software up to date, in response to Billy Markus, one of the co-creators of the tongue-in-cheek bitcoin rival.
Markus, who has mostly abandoned the dogecoin project, stated in a Twitter thread, “What’s needed is for mining pools to update,” A thumbs-up emoji was Musk’s response.
“Run a node or don’t run a node.” If you want to support the network, you’ll need to be committed to running a complete, dependable node that consumes a lot of bandwidth and is kept up to date,” Markus stated. “But for 1.14.4’s success, existing node operators need to update.”
Musk has previously called on those running network nodes to update their software to help lower dogecoin transaction fees—apparently part of his plan to “beat bitcoin hands down.”
The latest dogecoin version, designed to prepare “the network for lower recommended fees,” was released in August, and Musk has previously called on those running network nodes to update their software to help lower dogecoin transaction fees—apparently part of his plan to “beat bitcoin hands down.”
Last month, Musk stated, “It’s critical for doge fees to drop in order for things like buying movie [tickets] to be viable.” Musk announced in May that he was working with the inventors of the Dogecoin cryptocurrency to “improve system transaction efficiency.”
Musk’s recent involvement has failed to affect the dogecoin price, which is sometimes quickly moved by Musk’s doge-related statements. The dogecoin price peaked in May, just before of Musk’s much-anticipated performance on Saturday Night Live in the United States, and has since lost almost 70% of its value.
Musk has also caused massive price fluctuations in lesser cryptocurrencies. Musk’s recent photo of his Shiba Inu dog, on which dogecoin is based, boosted the price of the dogecoin-derived shiba inu cryptocurrency by over 500%.
It has subsequently given up some of its gains, but it is still far higher than it was at the start of the month.
Meanwhile, the price of bitcoin has continued to rise, surpassing $58,000 per bitcoin for the first time since the May crackdown in China.
