Elon Musk, the richest person in the world has announced that his company Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) will allow people to buy some of its merchandise using the meme-based cryptocurrency Dogecoin.

"Tesla will make some merch buyable with Doge & see how it goes," Musk tweeted Tuesday.

The price of Dogecoin was plummeting before Musk announced the news. However, following his tweet, the cryptocurrency surged as much as 30%. It was last up 26% at $0.2092, according to data from CoinMarketcap. 

The CEO of Tesla has been an avid supporter of Dogecoin. This year, the billionaire claimed the title of “Dogefather” for himself. Interestingly, Dogecoin has started as a joke in 2013, but the digital token has turned several new traders into millionaires since then.

In May, Musk asked his Twitter followers in a poll whether Tesla should accept Dogecoin as a payment method. The response was an overwhelming “yes.” 

In the same month, Musk said that he thought Dogecoin could ironically become the future of cryptocurrencies.

The electric car manufacturer Tesla isn’t the first company to accept the meme-inspired cryptocurrency as a payment method. For instance, the Dallas Mavericks — a basketball team — owned by the crypto enthusiast and billionaire investor Mark Cuban has started selling tickets and merchandise in exchange for Dogecoins earlier in 2021.

Musk and Tesla, however, have been the most influential factor in the price increase of cryptos. In January 2021, Tesla bought $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin. In March, the company said that they would start accepting Bitcoin payments for their electric vehicles.

However, Musk suddenly changed his mind in May. The reason behind the move was the “insane” energy use for mining Bitcoins. Similar to other cryptos, Bitcoin relies on intensive power consumption to solve complicated computerized mathematical problems in return of cryptos. Each time the computer solves a puzzle, a block in the blockchain is created and the miner gets rewarded with the cryptocurrency they are mining.

Musk is currently the richest man in the world and has been chosen Monday by Time Magazine as the Person of the Year. The publication called Musk "clown, genius, edgelord, visionary, industrialist, showman, [and] cad."