Elon Musk, the at-times controversial SpaceX founder and stop-and-go crypto supporter, voiced his support late Sunday for a set of major updates to the Dogecoin (DOGE) blockchain. The changes would drastically redesign the cryptocurrency’s software architecture and alter its token economics.
The popular “joke crypto” appears to be gearing up to become a serious utility coin after a massive influx of capitalization earlier this year. It remains to be seen whether the updates Musk supports would be good or bad for the coin’s holders should they be adopted.
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In a Reddit thread Sunday, Dogecoin Core developer Patrick Lodder summarized the proposed updates:
“This proposal to all dogecoin stakeholders suggests to reduce average fees 100x for standard transactions on the dogecoin chain, split full control over all aspects of fees between miners and node operators, rely less on core development, and bring back a functional (small) free transaction space that incentivizes keeping the network healthy.”
Lower fees may attract more users looking to use Dogecoin for cash checking, remittances, and merchant payment settlements online. It may also lower the incentive for miners to maintain, validate, update, and secure the Doge blockchain.
Elon Musk told Dogecoin Core developer Ross Nicoll in a tweet Sunday night that these changes are, “Important to support.”
Charles Hoskinson — who cofounded Ethereum with Vitalik Buterin, and founded competing blockchain Cardano — said in a recent podcast that he’s just glad Musk is stirring the pot for Dogecoin, even when he’s just goofing on it.
Hoskinson said he hopes the attention will prompt “real developers” to come in and “start working on doge to create some use and utility for it, so at least it has a value floor and won't collapse.”
Dogecoin got a price bump from Elon Musk’s tweet, rising from $0.242 (USD) to as high as $0.266 before settling in under key resistance around the $0.260 level at time of publication.
Musk’s ability to move markets with the tap of the tweet button led a former Bitrefill executive to joke, “Say something, Elon Musk!” last week with the DOGE price down for six consecutive weeks. That was after peaking in May along with the rest of the cryptocurrency market, though Dogecoin outshone most of its competition during the recent (and arguably ongoing) bull run.
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