On Friday, chief executive of Tesla Inc. Elon Musk said that the digital currency Dogecoin could be used to buy merchandise from Tesla. This sent the digital coin soaring by up to 18 percent. At one point of time it traded a little above $0.2., after his tweet. Earlier in December, he had said that the Dogecoin would soon be used on a test basis to purchase merchandise. At that time, the coin rose by 20 percent.

On Friday, Musk tweeted: “Tesla merch buyable with Dogecoin.”

Last year, Tesla had accepted Bitcoin as payment for a short period of time. This year, the electric vehicle maker will accept Dogecoin as payment for Tesla merchandise.

The online store of Tesla displayed prices for some items that could be bought with US dollars or with the Dogecoin. These merch include the following:

A whistle that is inspired by its Cybertruck model
An electric quad bike for children
A belt buckle.

Elon Musk who has millions of followers on Twitter is referred to as the “Dogefather” by some. He has often tweeted about the meme based crypto currency. Most of his tweets on the Dogecoin have been positive. He once called the crypto currency the “people’s crypto.” This had give the coin a huge boost. It had roughly soared about 4000 percent last year.

An occasional mention calling it a “hustle” on his first appearance on “Saturday Night Live” last year, saw the crypto currency achieve its biggest ever plunge.

Elon Musk’s tweets generally create a buzz, whether it is positive or negative remains to be seen. He has often tweeted on crypto currency and the Dogecoin has been one of the digital tokens that has perhaps seen the most tweets.

The Dogecoin started as a meme coin and a joke. It is now a valuable cryptocurrency. CoinGecko reports that the Dogecoin is the 11th most valuable crypto currency. It has a market cap of over $26 billion, which is no joke for a digital token that began its journey into the crypto world as a joke.

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