Tesla Allows Customers to Purchase Merch with Dogecoin

In this clip from "The 5" on Motley Fool Live, recorded on Jan. 18, Motley Fool contributors Trevor Jennewine, Jamie Louko, and Taylor Carmichael discuss their thoughts on Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE), and what they think the strategy is behind Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) making the announcement that customers can purchase merchandise with it.

Trevor Jennewine: Tesla recently announced that consumers can purchase Tesla merchandise with Dogecoin. If you're not familiar with that cryptocurrency, Dogecoin was created back in 2013 by Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) Engineer Jackson Palmer and IBM (NYSE: IBM) Engineer Billy Marcus. The token's mascot is a Shiba Inu which is a breed of hunting dog in Japan, and it was taken from a popular meme at the time. The cryptocurrency was created as a joke. It doesn't really have any groundbreaking functionality or utility. For years, Dogecoin had its ups and downs. But around the time that GameStop (NYSE: GME) and AMC Entertainment Holdings (NYSE: AMC) became popular, short squeeze targets, investors started to push Dogecoin on social media. Tesla CEO Elon Musk also mentioned Dogecoin in several tweets. Between the beginning of 2020 and May of 2021, Dogecoin rose 31,000%. It has since fallen sharply even so, if you look back at the beginning of 2021, it's still up 8,000% since the beginning of 2020. It's been a wild ride depending on where you got on that train. Let's talk about cryptocurrency. First, does this move make sense for Tesla? Is it a needle mover for the company? Jamie, let's get your thoughts here.