It came as dogecoin continued to fall after the technology billionaire said on television that it was a “hustle”
Elon Musk said that his rocket firm – SpaceX will now accept the meme-inspired crypto-currency dogecoin as payment.
In a tweet he said the commercial space exploration firm will launch the “DOGE-1 Mission to the Moon” early next year.
It came as dogecoin continued to fall after the technology billionaire said on television that it was a “hustle”.
Last month, he tweeted that SpaceX was going to put a “literal Dogecoin on the literal moon”.
Canada’s Geometric Energy Corporation announced the dogecoin-funded mission earlier on Sunday, although the statement did not reveal its financial value.
“This mission will demonstrate the application of crypto-currency beyond Earth orbit and set the foundation for interplanetary commerce”, SpaceX Vice President of Commercial Sales Tom Ochinero was quoted as saying in the statement.
Musk’s tweets in recent months have helped to turn the once-obscure digital currency, which was started as a social media joke, into the world’s fourth-biggest crypto-currency.
According to crypto-currency data tracker CoinGecko.com, it has soared by more than 800 per cent over the last month, with its total market value rising above $70bn.
However, after Musk called it a “hustle” while he was hosting the Saturday Night Live comedy sketch television show, dogecoin lost more than a third of its price on Sunday.
In February, electric carmaker Tesla, where Mr Musk is chief executive, said it bought $1.5bn worth of bit-coin and was planning to accept the crypto-currency as payment for its vehicles.
The announcement was seen as another major step towards the mainstream acceptance of bit-coin and helped to boost the price of the crypto-currency to a fresh record high of nearly $62,000.
Tesla, last month, announced that its profits for the first three months of the year were $438m, up from $16m last year, bolstered by sales of Bit-coin and environmental credits.
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