Gerry Palmers Tech 05.16.2021 01:May AM EDT

Dogecoin Price Skyrockets As Elon Musk Supports Devs: “Potentially Promising” Crypto Not Environment Friendly?

While this "joke" cryptocurrency might have fallen to a third of its value the past week when Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk described it as a "hustle," Dogecoin packed a huge wallop Friday, with Forbes reporting a 30-percent increase in the digital currency's price. This was after Musk himself revealed he was collaborating with Dogecoin developers on improving "system transaction efficiency."

This came after Musk caused a cryptocurrency market plunge after Tesla had canceled bitcoin as a payment option for purchasing its electronic vehicles. Musk would also reiterate that he "strongly believe(s) in crypto," but said such digital currencies "can't drive a massive increase in fossil fuel use, especially coal."

After showing his support for the meme-based token, Dogecoin clawed back up the crypto rankings to fourth-behind Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Binance, with Forbes further stating a market capitalization of around $70 billion.

Elon Musk "Working with Doge Developers"

While Musk had revealed he was working with Dogecoin developers, it has been common knowledge that the cryptocurrency never had any full-time developers since founders Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer left the team in 2015.

Because of this, Musk had worked mostly with a team of part-time developers, and according to one of those developers, Ross Nicholl, in an interview with Decrypt, they worked with him since 2019. Nicholl, who said the Doge developer team had declined Musk's bid for funding, clarified that the Tesla CEO had given them a wealth of inputs and needed guidance. He also revealed collaborating on an upgrade, Dodge 1.21 that will enhance integration, wallet backups, and synchronization speed in a partnership that he described as "potentially promising," according to The Ascent.

Dogecoin Created Without Considering Environment Impact, Says Founder

However, Dogecoin founder Billy Markus made a startling revelation that this currency Musk called as "potentially promising" has actually not been environment-friendly, Gadgets 360 reported. In a tweet, Markus declared that he never considered an environmental impact when he developed the cryptocurrency with Jackson Palmer. Answering a tweet asking if he considered energy usage in creating Dogecoin, and further queried how the doge community made Dogecoin more efficient, Markus tweeted, "I made doge in like 2 hours I didn't consider anything."

Elon Musk as the "Dogefather"

Dogecoin prices have skyrocketed 20,000 percent since the same time last year, as Musk repeatedly identified himself as the "Dogefather", sending prices soaring in numerous occasions, including the time prior to his fateful appearance on NBC's "Saturday Night Live," when the market speculated on his mentioning the digital token on-air sent prices rising to record-highs, trading at 70 cents before the SNL episode. After the telecast, however, since mentioning that Dogecoin was a "hustle," prices fell a third off its value, trading at 44 cents last Sunday.

Yet on Friday, we saw Dogecoin coming back to as high as 56 cents, as a result of Musk's latest tweets, up 39.4 percent, ending at 54 cents per coin, as Coinbase announced it would list the Shiba-inu-inspired token.