Could the "Green" Assets Musk Is Looking for Be Dogecoin?
If we were to vote for the most active and influential KOL in the recent crypto market, Tesla CEO Elon Musk would certainly be at the top of the list. The "tweet-driven token price" effect has proven effective time and again, making investors in the space不得不着重关注不得不着重关注不得不着重关注 Musk's movements.
On February 8 this year, Tesla announced it had purchased $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin, and Bitcoin's price surged 15.22% that day;
On March 24, Tesla announced it would accept Bitcoin Payment, and Bitcoin price rose another 6.5%;
On May 13, Musk tweeted that Tesla would suspend acceptance of Bitcoin Payment, triggering a Bitcoin price correction of more than 10%.
Meanwhile, according to Tesla's first-quarter earnings report, Tesla cashed out $272 million by selling 10% of its Bitcoin holdings, meaning Tesla netted over $100 million through short-term Bitcoin trading in the first quarter alone. Interestingly, when Musk announced Tesla's suspension of Bitcoin Payment, he cited "Bitcoin mining and trading consume fossil fuels, especially causing rapid consumption of coal resources." For more details on this, please refer to our yesterday's article "Musk's Tweet Caused a Huge Shock, Bitcoin Plunged Over $10K, Can the Bull Market Continue?" - interested readers can click the link to view it. Today we will continue yesterday's topic and explore what the "green" assets Musk is looking for might be, following his "environmental" philosophy.
Could It Be Dogecoin?
This is currently the first thing the market thinks of as a Bitcoin alternative. After all, over the past few months, Dogecoin has undoubtedly been the "favorite" in Musk's tweets - not only appearing frequently but also in various creative forms. Even a simple emoji can spark heated discussions in the crypto community or even violent fluctuations in the secondary market.
Dogecoin/USDT price chart, Source: OKX OKX
In fact, since entering 2021, Dogecoin's price has surged over 160x. According to OKX OKX market data, on January 1, 2021, Dogecoin's lowest price was 0.00456 USDT, and the highest price on May 8 was 0.74 USDT. Although there are no authoritative statistics, it is undeniable that Musk's strong promotion played a significant positive role in Dogecoin's breakout and price surge.
Just two days before Musk announced Tesla's suspension of Bitcoin Payment, he had conducted a poll on Twitter asking "Do you want Tesla to accept Dogecoin Payment?" The poll results showed that 78.2% of participants supported Tesla accepting Dogecoin Payment.
Poll results on "whether users want Tesla to accept Dogecoin Payment"
Musk's tweet today
Today, Musk updated his tweet again, saying "Working with Dogecoin developers to improve system transaction efficiency, potentially promising." While reiterating his bullish stance on crypto assets and his own "environmental philosophy."
So connecting these events together, Dogecoin undoubtedly holds an important position among Musk's alternatives.
Is Dogecoin More Environmentally Friendly Than Bitcoin?
This is a very practical question. Since Musk's reason for suspending Tesla's acceptance of Bitcoin Payment was that Bitcoin mining and trading's energy consumption is "not environmentally friendly," a hard requirement for its alternative is "environmental friendliness."
So, is Dogecoin really more environmentally friendly than Bitcoin? It is important to note that in terms of consensus mechanism, Dogecoin, like Bitcoin, also uses POW (Proof of Work), meaning that from an energy consumption perspective, both have the same logic at the mining and on-chain trading levels, both requiring professional mining rigs for extensive calculations. Therefore, we will focus on comparing the energy consumption per transaction between the two.
Although both Bitcoin and Dogecoin use the POW mechanism, they differ significantly. Bitcoin uses the SHA-256 algorithm, which has the highest security but also higher energy consumption. According to TRG Data Center's analysis, each Bitcoin transaction is estimated to consume approximately 700 kilowatt-hours of electricity.
Dogecoin, on the other hand, mines through the Litecoin network, which uses the Scrypt encryption algorithm, so Dogecoin also uses the Scrypt encryption algorithm. This algorithm greatly improves efficiency and reduces energy consumption at the cost of sacrificing some security. According to estimates, each Dogecoin transaction consumes approximately 0.12 kilowatt-hours. Comparing the two, Dogecoin's energy consumption per transaction is only 0.017% of Bitcoin's, clearly meeting Musk's expectation mentioned in his tweet that "energy consumption per transaction is less than 1% of Bitcoin's."
Dogecoin's Massive User Base
In addition to low energy consumption per unit, Dogecoin's strong community foundation and massive user base are also important factors that the market focuses on. In terms of on-chain addresses, among the top 10 crypto assets by market cap, Dogecoin's total addresses have reached 62.68 million, ranking fourth after Bitcoin (829 million), BCH (320 million), and Ethereum (194 million).
Dogecoin on-chain address trends, Source: qkl123
This legendary asset forked from Litecoin in December 2013, has deeply won people's hearts since its inception due to its inherent social attributes and culture of charity and tipping. Moreover, it developed rapidly due to fair token distribution without pre-mining. Over the past few months, Musk's strong promotion has greatly accelerated Dogecoin's breakout and expanded its user base.
Taking Reddit, a platform popular with overseas users, as an example, Dogecoin has attracted 1.837 million followers on Reddit, while Bitcoin has 2.8778 million. Considering their different development trajectories and market cap proportions, Dogecoin's performance is respectable.
Key data for Dogecoin on Reddit
Beyond Dogecoin, What Are the Other Alternatives?
The currently red-hot Ethereum is one that cannot be overlooked. According to Digiconomist's estimates, each Ethereum transaction consumes approximately 62.56 kilowatt-hours of electricity. Of course, this is calculated based on the energy consumption level of the Ethereum network under the POW mechanism. However, as the ETH 2.0 upgrade progresses, Ethereum will gradually switch its consensus algorithm to POS (Proof of Stake). Currently, the mainstream industry view is that Ethereum under POS consensus is estimated to reduce energy consumption by 99% compared to PoW. With this calculation, after the ETH 2.0 upgrade is complete, Ethereum's energy consumption will be only 0.89% of Bitcoin's, making it also one of the options that meets Musk's expectations.
Of course, due to the common characteristics of POS mechanism, it can be said that almost all tokens using POS consensus mechanism could become Musk's next option.
Additionally, XRP is also a possible alternative. Its biggest advantage is low energy consumption. Because all XRP tokens are pre-mined, according to TRG Data Center's data, XRP transactions consume very little electricity, only 0.0079 kilowatt-hours per transaction, which is even lower than Dogecoin. However, XRP's disadvantages are also obvious. On one hand, the dispute between Ripple and the SEC has not yet been settled; on the other hand, its high degree of centralization has been widely criticized by the market.
Conclusion
Regarding the "environmental card" Musk played at this time, there are supporters among his followers, as well as dissenting voices from critics. The most pointed criticism is probably "using environmentalism as a banner while conducting business for profit." For example, Mira Christanto from Messari expressed doubt about the long-term impact of Tesla's decision, pointing out that "Tesla still holds Bitcoin on its asset balance sheet" and questioning Tesla's statements about Bitcoin mining exacerbating fossil fuel consumption.
In the current crypto market, due to the incomplete regulatory mechanisms, market sentiment driven by super KOLs can easily trigger violent fluctuations in crypto asset prices in a short period. As ordinary investors, it is still necessary to invest with a thorough understanding of crypto assets.
Disclaimer
This article may contain product-related content that does not apply to your region. This article is only intended to provide general information and does not accept responsibility for any factual errors or omissions. This article represents the author's personal views only and does not represent OKX's views. This article is not intended to provide any advice, including but not limited to: (i) investment advice or investment recommendations; (ii) offers or solicitations to buy, sell, or hold digital assets; or (iii) financial, accounting, legal, or tax advice. Holdings in digital assets (including stablecoins) involve high risk and may fluctuate significantly, or even become worthless. You should carefully consider whether trading or holding digital assets is suitable for you based on your financial situation. For questions about your specific situation, please consult your legal/tax/investment professionals. The information contained in this article (including market data and statistical information, if any) is for general reference purposes only. Although we have taken all reasonable precautions in preparing such data and charts, we do not accept any responsibility for any factual errors or omissions expressed herein. © 2025 OKX. This article may be reproduced or distributed in its entirety, or excerpts of 100 words or less may be used, provided that such use is for non-commercial purposes. Any reproduction or distribution of the full article must prominently state: "This article is copyrighted © 2025 OKX, used with permission." Permitted excerpts must cite the article title and include attribution, for example, "Article Title, [Author Name (if applicable)], © 2025 OKX." Some content may have been generated or assisted by artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Derivative works or other uses of this article are not permitted.
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