Elon Musk to launch crypto-currency-funded moon mission

It’s been a busy period for multi-billionaire tech-nerd, Elon Musk. Over the past couple of months, he’s PR’d the shit out of dogecoin, which was once the butt of cryptocurrency jokes. Now, it’s the world’s fourth-biggest cryptocurrency, with a market capital of around $92bil.

It started as a social media-fuelled joke, consisting of memes that photoshopped Musk’s head onto The Lion King’s baboon, Rafiki, and dogecoin’s shiba inu mascot onto baby Simba. But Musk is now laughing all the way to the bank – and the moon.

Over the weekend, he announced that his aerospace company SpaceX will accept the cryptocurrency as payment, in a bid to launch the first-ever mission to the moon funded entirely by a cryptocurrency. Apparently, the mission will launch early next year. In Musk​’s recent tweet he wrote: ​“SpaceX launching satellite Doge‑1 to the moon next year.” Last month, he also assertively posted that SpaceX was going to put ​“literal Dogecoin on the literal moon”.

It all seems to be falling into place, with Canada’s Geometric Energy Corporation – the moon mission’s launch site – announcing the dogecoin-funded mission yesterday.

In a statement, SpaceX’s Vice President of Commercial Sales, Tom Ochinero, said: ​“This mission will demonstrate the application of cryptocurrency beyond Earth orbit and set the foundation for interplanetary commerce.”

According to BBC, Musk has played a vital role in pivoting dogecoin from a meme to a coveted cryptocurrency with serious market value. In the last month, its value has soared by an astonishing 800 per cent, according to cryptocurrency data tracker CoinGecko​.com.

A big dog in the crypto-world, Tesla has also announced that it’s bought $1.5bil worth of bitcoin. Musk has even confirmed that the company will be allowing full cryptocurrency payments on their futuristic vehicles. Crypto-cars? The future has arrived.