(Reuters) – SpaceX will launch the DOGE-1 to the Moon mission in the first quarter of next year, and Elon Musk’s commercial rocket company will accept the meme-inspired dogecoin as payment.
Geometric Energy Corporation announced the dogecoin-funded mission on Sunday, with no financial cost to the mission.
“We’re delighted to launch DOGE-1 to the moon!” SpaceX vice president of commercial sales, Tom Ochinero, was quoted as saying in a statement released by Geometric Energy. “This mission will demonstrate the application of cryptocurrency outside of Earthorbit and lay the foundation for interplanetary trading.”
Musk announced on Twitter in April that SpaceX was going to put “literal Dogecoin on a literal moon.”
Dogecoin lost more than a third of its value on Sunday after Musk called it a “bustle” during his guest-host appearance on Saturday Night Live.
Musk’s tweets this year turned a once-obscure digital currency that began as a joke on social media into a speculator’s dream.