Dogecoin used to pay for SpaceX’s mission to the moon next year

SpaceX will launch the “DOGE-1 Mission to the Moon” in the first quarter of next year, with Elon Musk’s commercial rocket company accepting the meme-inspired cryptocurrency Dogecoin as payment.

“SpaceX launching satellite Doge-1 to the moon next year – Mission paid for in Doge – 1st crypto in space – 1st meme in space”, Musk said in a tweet.

Geometric Energy Corporation announced the Dogecoin-funded mission earlier on Sunday, with the statement not disclosing the mission’s financial value.

Geometric’s website describes the firm as a private Canadian company originally founded to invent renewable energy technologies and since expanded into areas like space.

“DOGE has proven to be a fast, reliable, and cryptographically secure digital currency that operates when traditional banks cannot and is sophisticated enough to finance a commercial Moon mission in full,” Geometric said in the statement. “It has been chosen as the unit of account for all lunar business between SpaceX and Geometric Energy Corporation and sets precedent for future missions to the Moon and Mars.”

“This mission will demonstrate the application of cryptocurrency 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 released by Geometric Energy.

Musk said on Twitter in April that SpaceX was going to put a “literal Dogecoin on the literal moon”.

Dogecoin lost more than a third of its price on Sunday after Musk called it a ‘hustle’ during his guest-host spot on the Saturday Night Live comedy sketch TV show.

Musk’s tweets this year turned the once-obscure digital currency, which began as a social media joke, into a speculator’s dream.

On crypto data tracker CoinGecko.com, Dogecoin has jumped more than 800 percent over the last month and is now the fourth-largest digital currency, with a market capitalisation of $73bn. It hit a record high Thursday above $0.73.

Musk is also CEO of electric carmaker Tesla Inc, which said in February it had bought $1.5bn worth of Bitcoin and would soon accept it as a form of payment for its electric cars, a large stride towards mainstream acceptance that sent Bitcoin soaring to a record high of nearly $62,000.