Billionaire investor and owner of the Dallas Mavericks Mark Cuban told CNBC last week that Dogecoin has a solid use case as a payment method. And that the DOGE community is the “strongest” when it comes to Dogecoin as a means of exchange.
“It’s a medium that can be used for the acquisition of goods and services.
The community for doge is the strongest when it comes to using it as a medium of exchange.”
What’s more, “crypto villan” and self-appointed “Dogefather” Elon Musk chimed in to echo Cuban’s stance on the matter.
I’ve been saying this for a while
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 14, 2021
However, an objective examination of the qualities of “strong” payment coins, such as throughput and low transaction costs, shows better options do exist.
Dogecoin Use Cases
March this year, as Dogecoin was about to make its epic run-up, the Dallas Mavericks announced they would start accepting DOGE for tickets and online merch.
The move was somewhat groundbreaking in that it presented a rebuttal to the naysayers who were keen to point out Dogecoin’s lack of use cases.
On that, Cuban said the decision to do this was based on nothing other than the fact that they can. He added that the benefits of the move would hopefully bring about positive PR.
“Because we can, we have chosen to do so. We have chosen to do so because sometimes in business you have to do things that are fun, engaging and hopefully generate a lot of PR. So we will take Dogecoin, today, tomorrow and possibly forever more.”
Five weeks later, Cuban tweeted that it was an outstanding success, with more than $122k of merch paid for with DOGE. He also said he intends to keep every DOGE earned.
FYI, the Mavs sales in @dogecoin have increased 550pct over the past month. We have now sold more than 122k Doge in merchandise !
We will never sell 1 single Doge ever. So keep buying @dallasmavsshop https://t.co/li32cdtcED
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) April 14, 2021
Since then, both Cuban and Musk have continued to reiterate their support for Dogecoin.
Last week, Cuban tweeted an offer of “special pricing” for merch buyers paying with DOGE. While Musk’s SpaceX recently announced plans to pay for adverts, beamed into the sky by satellite, using cryptocurrencies including Dogecoin.
Better Payment Cryptos Exist
As much as Cuban and Musk push the payment narrative for DOGE, other cryptocurrencies are cheaper to use and feature higher throughputs.
Data from bitinfocharts.com shows the average Dogecoin transaction fee comes in at $0.772. Whereas for Litecoin it’s just $0.015, while XRP is fractions of a penny.
Similarly, transactions per second for Dogecoin is rated at 33, while Litecoin is 56, and XRP is 1,500.
Dogecoin advocates, Cuban included, would argue that DOGE for payments is about more than just the raw numbers. Instead, as Cuban said, it’s also about the community response.
DOGE Pushes Higher
Dogecoin faired badly during the recent market dip. From peak to trough, DOGE suffered a 58% fall in price, bottoming at $0.16 in mid-June.
Since then, it has tested this support level on two further occasions. But a lack of momentum and urgency led some to believe it was all over for DOGE.
Nonetheless, early August saw a fightback leading to a decisive move above the 50-day moving average. DOGE has gone on to build on this momentum leading to a 27% gain since the breakout.
Source: DOGEUSDT on TradingView.com
With this reversal in fortunes, DOGE hodlers have renewed optimism in hitting the $1 price target.