Dogecoin (DOGE), the seventh-largest cryptocurrency by capitalization, has received fresh backing from two of its biggest supporters. First came Mark Cuban, the owner of professional basketball team Dallas Mavericks, announcing that the team had launched a campaign dubbed Cryptomania. Reportedly, the team is giving fans e-gift cards as part of this campaign.
Through Cryptomania, the team will reward anyone that purchases more than $150 worth of merchandise in a single crypto transaction by giving them $25 back. At the moment, the Mavs only support DOGE and Bitcoin (BTC). With the campaign set to run until the end of the year, DOGE is poised for further gains as the team’s fans rush in to seize this opportunity.
This push for DOGE adoption comes after Cuban went on an interview to say the meme-inspired cryptocurrency is the strongest crypto for transactions. According to him, the DOGE community is the strongest in the crypto industry because it is keen on using the coin as a medium of exchange. He also announced that anyone that pays for the Dallas Mavericks’ merchandise in DOGE would get special discounts.
While Cuban is keen on helping DOGE become mainstream, he came under fire earlier this month after disclosing that his DOGE holdings are worth less than $494. The crypto community considered his endorsement of DOGE as preaching water and drinking wine.
Elon Musk supports DOGE’s new upgrade
Apart from Cuban, Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, has added new support for DOGE by highlighting the importance of an upgrade that seeks to reduce gas fees. A Twitter handles going by Doge Whisperer first disclosed the news of the update on August 29, saying 205 computers were already running on the new update at the time.
However, more computers needed to upgrade to version 1.14.4 before developers can release the update. Per Doge Whisperer, this update would secure the DOGE network and lower transaction fees. Replying to the Doge Whisperer’s tweet, Elon Musk said the update is important. Before this, Musk tweeted that he was working with DOGE developers to improve system transaction efficiency.
Reportedly, DOGE’s transaction fee was 10X cheaper than Litecoin (LTC) transactions at launch. However, increasing adoption has seen the coin’s gas fee exceed that of LTC fivefold. To this end, DOGE developers believe it is vital to cut transaction costs by at least 50X to give the cryptocurrency a competitive edge.
Sharing the same view as Cuban, Musk previously said he believes DOGE can be a better payment medium than BTC if its block time increases tenfold and its fees drop 100X. According to him, DOGE must have low fees and high volume before it can become the currency of the world.
While Cuban’s and Musk’s fresh support has the potential to push DOGE’s price higher, the coin has not yet responded positively. At the time of writing, DOGE is changing hands at $0.2752 after plunging 1.52% in 24 hours. The coin has also lost 14.68% of its value over the past seven days.
