The price of Dogecoin jumped as much as 10% to nearly 9 cents immediately following the tweet.

SpaceX, Elon Musk's space exploration company, will soon accept Dogecoin as payment for merchandise, alongside Musk's other company, Tesla. "Tesla merch can be bought with Doge, soon SpaceX merch too," tweeted the multi-billionaire on Friday. When asked whether subscriptions for Starlink, a satellite-based, broadband internet system, might be payable in DOGE, he responded, "Maybe one day." But this help from SpaceX will only give a temporary boost to everyone's favorite memecoin. Why? Let's find out.

What Is Dogecoin?

Dogecoin (DOGE) is based on the popular "doge" Internet meme and features a Shiba Inu on its logo. The open-source digital currency was created by Billy Markus from Portland, Oregon, and Jackson Palmer from Sydney, Australia, and was forked from Litecoin in December 2013. Dogecoin's creators envisaged it as a fun, light-hearted cryptocurrency that would have greater appeal beyond the core Bitcoin audience since it was based on a dog meme. Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted several tweets on social media that Dogecoin is his favorite coin.

Doge prices surge

The price of dogecoin jumped as much as 10% to nearly 9 cents immediately following the tweet, before recently settling to a gain of about 7.7%.

In December, Musk's announcement that Tesla merchandise could be bought with Dogecoin helped DOGE prices surge as much as 33%.

Currently, SpaceX's merchandise shop still only accepts credit card payments. Shop items are also only listed in dollars by default in the US, and no cryptocurrency conversions or prices are available for any items in the shop, the report said.