Mark Cuban and Elon Musk are two of the world’s most famous billionaires — and recently, the “Shark Tank” shark and the brash and outspoken Tesla boss have found themselves publicly at odds.

Musk has emerged as one of Donald Trump‘s most prominent political surrogates, while Cuban has endorsed Kamala Harris. When Cuban said he’d buy Musk’s X social media platform “in a heartbeat” if he had the money, Musk mocked him with a laughing emoji.

But one thing that unites the two adversarial one-percenters is their longtime advocacy for and ownership of cryptocurrency. Furthermore, both are looking very seriously at a token that started as a joke.

Trending Now: Boomers Hold Half of U.S. Wealth–So Why Are Thousands Living Without Homes?

Dogecoin: From Meme to Money

Software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer created the cryptocurrency Dogecoin (DOGE) in 2013. They did so to lampoon the wild crypto speculation that dominated the market at that time by harnessing the satirical power of the meme culture that ruled early-2010s internet culture.

However, after more than a decade in the crypto market news headlines, the open-source, p2p meme coin is no longer a laughing matter — at least not for Cuban and Musk.

Its price history has been riddled with the same stomach-churning volatility that investors have come to expect from crypto, hitting a five-year low of $0.0015 and a five-year high of $0.68 before settling at today’s price of around $0.10 per token.

However, no matter what you might think of Dogecoin as a long-term or speculative investment, the meme coin has matured into one of the most utilitarian digital tokens on the market. And, its potential as a legitimately useful real-world alternative currency has caught the attention of two of the three-comma club’s most famous members.

Merchants Are Taking a Joke Coin Seriously

Bloomberg recently chronicled the rise of Dogecoin as the go-to cryptocurrency for businesses looking to accept digital tokens for real-world payments. But why would everyone from Williamsburg Pizza in Brooklyn to University Sports Grill in Tempe, Arizona, choose a silly satirical coin over an established powerhouse like Bitcoin or Ethereum?

Transaction speed and cost.

Bloomberg writes, “Payments on the memecoin’s network are much faster and cost way less than many other cryptocurrencies. While transaction costs vary, the average fee is currently around 0.07 Dogecoin, or less than a penny.”

Bitcoin transactions, on the other hand, cost the equivalent of $0.79.

Similarly, Dogecoin has emerged as the crypto of choice for remittances. People living abroad have traditionally sent cash payments through financial retail businesses or international banks, where fees can top 7%, which gave lower-cost crypto an opening. However, Bitcoin remittance transaction times range from 10 minutes to one hour, while Dogecoin transactions take less than a minute, even across borders.

Mark, Musk and Memecoins

As business owners have latched on to Dogecoin’s potential as the cryptocurrency with the most promising real-world potential, the billionaire celebrities have followed suit.

In 2021, Cuban’s Dallas Mavericks NBA franchise began accepting Dogecoin as payment for tickets and merchandise. Bloomberg says Cuban estimates the team has accepted around 25,000 Dogecoin so far.

Cuban also likes Dogecoin because its virality serves as an effective marketing tool, unlike competitors like Litecoin. Cuban told Bloomberg, “It’s an inexpensive way to become part of an incredibly vibrant online community.”

Then there’s Musk, who has long shown an affinity for meme culture and frequently engages with Dogecoin-related accounts on his X platform. In fact, he’s been so vocal in his advocacy that investors sued him for artificially inflating DOGE’s price by posting about it so frequently. In August, a judge dismissed that case.

Recently, Musk said he was considering reinstating Dogecoin as an official payment method for Tesla merchandise, which it was until the company disallowed crypto payments earlier in 2024.

Now that he’s become a close confidant of Trump, Musk has floated the idea of leading a new Department of Government Efficiency if Trump wins a second term in office.

Naturally, the hypothetical department’s acronym would be DOGE