Mark Cuban and Elon Musk Agree That This One Crypto Investment Is No Joke
Written by
Andrew Lisa
Edited by
Gary Dudak
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Mark Cuban and Elon Musk are two of the world’s most famous billionaires, and recently the “Shark Tank” shark and the outspoken Tesla boss have found themselves publicly at odds. Though Musk is currently the richest man in the world with an estimated net worth of around $328 billion, Cuban is no slouch in the financial department with an estimated net worth of about $5.7 billion.
When billionaires battle in public, even indirectly, their debate tends to get attention. Now that Musk is working for the Trump administration, Cuban’s former claim that he would buy Musk’s X social media platform “in a heartbeat” if he had the money, has a bit more intrigue. At the time, Musk mocked Cuban’s comment with a laughing emoji.
However, one thing that unites the two adversarial one-percenters is their longtime advocacy for and ownership of cryptocurrency. Furthermore, both are looking very seriously at a token that started as a joke, which now seems like no laughing matter.
Dogecoin: From Meme to Money
Software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer created the crypto dogecoin (DOGE) in 2013. They did so to lampoon the wild crypto speculation that dominated the market at that time by harnessing the satirical power of the meme culture that ruled early-2010s internet culture.
However, after more than a decade in the crypto market news headlines, the open-source, p2p meme coin is no longer a laughing matter — at least not for Cuban and Musk.
Its price history has been riddled with the same stomach-churning volatility that investors have come to expect from crypto, hitting a five-year low of $0.0015 and a five-year high of $0.68 before settling at today’s price of around $0.18 per token.
No matter what you might think of dogecoin as a long-term or speculative investment though, the meme coin has matured into one of the most utilitarian digital tokens on the market. And, its potential as a legitimately useful real-world alternative currency has caught the attention of two of the three-comma club’s most famous members. Even with all of the political controversy, dogecoin’s forecast remains slightly optimistic.
Merchants Are Taking a Joke Coin Seriously
Late last year, Bloomberg chronicled the rise of Dogecoin as the go-to cryptocurrency for businesses looking to accept digital tokens for real-world payments. But why would spots from Williamsburg Pizza in Brooklyn to University Sports Grill in Tempe, Arizona, choose a silly satirical coin over an established powerhouse like bitcoin or ethereum?
Transaction speed and cost.
Bloomberg writes, “Payments on the memecoin’s network are much faster and cost way less than many other cryptocurrencies. While transaction costs vary, the average fee is currently around 0.07 Dogecoin or less than a penny.”
Similarly, Dogecoin has emerged as the crypto of choice for remittances. People living abroad have traditionally sent cash payments through financial retail businesses or international banks, where fees can top 7%, which gave lower-cost crypto an opening. However, Bitcoin remittance transaction times range from 10 minutes to one hour, while Dogecoin transactions take less than a minute, even across borders.
Mark, Musk and Memecoins
As business owners have latched on to Dogecoin’s potential as the cryptocurrency with the most promising real-world potential, the billionaire celebrities have followed suit.
In 2021, Cuban’s Dallas Mavericks NBA franchise began accepting Dogecoin as payment for tickets and merchandise. Cuban has also liked Dogecoin in the past because its virality serves as an effective marketing tool, unlike competitors like Litecoin. He said, “It’s an inexpensive way to become part of an incredibly vibrant online community.”
Then there’s Musk, who has long shown an affinity for meme culture and frequently engages with Dogecoin-related accounts on his X platform. In fact, he’s been so vocal in his advocacy that investors sued him for artificially inflating DOGE’s price by posting about it so frequently, but the case was dismissed.
However, that didn’t stop Musk from taking his controversial opinions all the way to The White House. He now heads the Department of Government Efficiency, unironically dubbed DOGE.
Caitlyn Moorhead contributed to the reporting for this article.
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