In a recent tweet, Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk offered to eat a McDonald’s happy meal on live TV if the fast-food chain officially included Dogecoin as a payment method. A few minutes after he published the tweet, the price of Dogecoin’s native coin DOGE increased by 7%.
Similar tweets from Musk have seen a more significant movement in markets in the past. For instance, DOGE jumped by 25% when he announced that Tesla would start accepting the meme token as a payment method in its online store. There’s a possibility that the market’s current downtrend is responsible for the lack of movement. Still, this slight increase implies that Musk’s power over the crypto market is no longer as strong.
only if @tesla accepts grimacecoin https://t.co/CQrmAFelHR pic.twitter.com/to9HmYJhej
— McDonald's (@McDonalds) January 25, 2022
Approximately ten hours after Musk’s tweet, the official McDonald’s Twitter account replied that they would only accept Dogecoin as a payment option if Tesla accepts Grimacecoin. For those who aren’t familiar with Grimacecoin, it’s a fake coin portraying the image of Grimace, a fuzzy purple mascot from MKcDonaldland in the ’80s. Unsurprisingly, crypto opportunists quickly created and minted a brand-new coin on Binance Smart Chain called Graimce Coin (Grimace).
Of course, it’s worth saying that investing in a meme token created only within the last few hours isn’t an ideal financial decision. Like always, mainstream media outlets like The Independent and the Wall Street Journal quickly covered and discussed the erratic online behavior of the SpaceX CEO and his crypto tweets.
It’s clear that Musk is joining the McDonald’s bandwagon, wherein crypto enthusiasts make memes about the fast-food giant whenever the market is undergoing a crisis like recently. Whenever the market is in the red, investors and influencers post memes about applying for a job at fast-food establishments like McDonald’s after losing so much money.
Even Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele joined the trend, posting an edited photo of him wearing a nametag and hat that McDonald’s employees wear.
#NewProfilePic pic.twitter.com/YVDlBoA2Cq
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) January 22, 2022
Although crypto-related memes may seem funny and lighthearted jokes that enthusiasts can laugh about whenever the market cries red, Musk is known for using his massive list of Twitter followers to cause significant changes in the cryptocurrency markets. When Musk announced that the Tesla online store would accept DOGE, Dogecoin’s price skyrocketed. Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s value sank when Musk announced that Tesla would stop accepting Bitcoin as a payment option in mid-2021.
Musk is known for being quite unpredictable on social media, and many have criticized him for that. Even Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, once referred to Musk in one of his tweets, saying, “Tweets that hurt other people’s finances are not funny, and irresponsible.”
Even though Tesla currently owns over 42,000 BTC at an average price of $31,700 per coin, the CEO appears to be more at ease promoting Dogecoin. He once said to Time Magazine:
