Dogecoin took the world by storm in 2021. While it initially started as a meme coin that got serious traction online, it soon accelerated toward the proverbial outer space once Elon Musk got hold of it and started tweeting about it. Of course, 2021 was a time when X was called Twitter, and Elon was one of many celebrities driving crypto price action through their tweets.
In 2024, the South African business tycoon’s monolithic, overarching ownership of the site has set it on a different course than many envisaged. While his eccentricity is never far from the headlines, his close ties to cryptocurrency and Dogecoin, in particular, have had speculators suggesting that his bid to turn X into the “everything app” could coincide with the soft spot for Dogecoin he has displayed consistently throughout the last three years. How likely is it that Dogecoin will become a payment method on the site and the app? Let’s take a look.
The Next Step In X Becoming The “Everything App”
To explore the concept of X accepting Dogecoin as a payment method, we must dive deeper into Musk’s relationship with Doge and his ambition to turn X into the only platform people use for anything connected to their mobile phones. It’s an ambitious plan, to say the least. To give credit to Elon, he is looking ahead to the natural conclusion of a chain of events that started 25 or 30 years ago, perhaps longer.
When the internet was in its earliest, most primitive stages, few understood its power and believed it would become the main avenue for everything in our lives. Smartphones accelerated this belief and added a new dimension to their capabilities, going from devices we used to text and call to shopping, banking, and casino gaming.
Gambling online has shown how much of a market has developed for those looking to turn their mobiles into their omnipresent channel for all things entertainment. Cryptocurrency has helped to evolve games from table games to a modern, online method of playing, it is an example of how a lot of online gaming now works. Roulette was once played on a table using cash as the staking currency, but now, playing roulette online has a different set of variables to weigh up, and is one of the signs that the world is going down a crypto route, with more casinos using crypto such as Bitcoin.
Ultimately, casino gaming has shown that the battle has switched away from being between land-based providers and digital providers. It is now more of a competition between different mobile apps as mobile apps have become the dominant force in casino gaming, and people are much more accepting of cryptocurrencies as a method to pay.
Musk, admittedly, won’t have X as a casino gaming platform high up on his main agenda. Still, by veering the conversation toward X and turning it into the one-stop, everything app, it would have to cater to prominent forms of entertainment online. That’s a long way off for now – people still don’t know whether to call it Twitter or X, myself included, but it could be a conversation much further down the line.
The Likelihood Of A Doge Revolution
Dogecoin still sits healthily in the top 10, with a market cap exceeding $20 billion. Not only has it emerged from the shadows to become the face of the meme coin revolution, but it is something that Musk has continued to tweet about, even in the earliest days of his Twitter takeover.
Not only has Musk been an early advocate of Bitcoin and other altcoins, but he has championed the growth, development, and mining of the world’s most prominent asset, and his consistent approach and positive attitude do indicate that there will be some universal cryptocurrency or token used which will allow people to send and withdraw funds from the site.
If Musk were to use any cryptocurrency, he would probably select one that wasn’t created as a joke. While it might be fun to post memes about it and flirt with the potential idea – getting Doge enthusiasts frothing at the mouth, the chances of it coming to fruition are highly unlikely.
Final Thoughts
Cryptocurrency will eventually become a payment method for X. Musk has previously invested in Bitcoin. Given that many key institutions now have a vested interest in the asset due to the colossal influx of capital through ETFs, it’s far more likely that it will be a visible asset like this rather than a highly oversupplied joke token that could, in theory, crash to zero.
Sure, detractors and naysayers could make the same arguments for Bitcoin. Still, the truth is that massive institutions are beginning to wake up to the benefits of cryptocurrency – it’s a next-to-impossible scenario.
BlackRock doesn’t invest in Dogecoin, but it does invest in Bitcoin and may soon extend this to altcoins like Ethereum. This could be another possible avenue that Musk introduces as a payment method on X. While nothing is impossible, predicting Musk’s behavior is just as problematic as the eye-watering overpayment he made to buy Twitter in the first place.
Still, if he opted for Doge as a payment system on X, it would be a bizarre move from one of the world’s wealthiest men – and if we’re going to bet on it – we’ll say it’s never going to happen.
