A three-word Twitter post about Dogecoin from Elon Musk has sparked speculation about whether Tesla’s experimental supercomputer could help the meme-inspired cryptocurrency.
Crypto enthusiasts on Reddit’s Dogecoin-focused forum started connecting the dots after Musk’s cryptic Sunday afternoon tweet, which simply said, “Dojo 4 Doge.”
Redditors suggested that he was referring to the powerful “Dojo” computer Tesla is building to train its artificial intelligence networks. Musk has indicated that the first version of Dojo — which takes its name from a martial arts school — would be ready toward the end of this year.
Musk did not elaborate on what his tweet meant. But it nevertheless caused a brief spike in Dogecoin on Sunday before the price tanked Monday morning. The coin was recently trading at about 5.2 cents, down roughly 5.6 percent from a day earlier, according to CoinDesk.
While Tesla reportedly plans to use the computer in its efforts to build self-driving cars, some Reddit users claimed it could also help stabilize the budding Dogecoin market.
“Dojo runs AI algorithm that trades doge and distributes it to keep the price level stable,” wrote one user posting under the name cilly28. “AI governed currency – welcome my son… to the machine!”
“AI can verify and process transactions. AI can recognize fraud in real time. Efficiency, safety, and trust,” another user, ElonMuskadvice, wrote Monday. “Dojo is the key to making dogecoin the people’s coin.”
The post was the latest example of Musk’s ability to move Dogecoin. His embrace of the alternative cryptocurrency has helped its value explode by more than 900 percent this year even though it started as a joke.
Dogecoin has apparently become a family affair for Musk — he said he and his kids set up some beefed-up home computer rigs for “mining” the currency, the process of creating new coins by solving complicated computational puzzles.
“It was fun,” Musk said in a pair of Saturday tweets, adding that he’d bought the mining rigs on eBay. “Not really economic, but it was a fun family project.”