mcdonalds
Fading power? Weak DOGE spike after Elon Musk makes McDonald’s offer
The Twitter feud between Elon Musk and McDonald's has escalated after the Tesla CEO offered to eat a happy meal on television
Erratic billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has offered to eat a kids meal from McDonald’s live on television if the fast food giant adds Dogecoin (DOGE) as an official payment method.
“I will eat a Happy Meal on TV if McDonald’s accepts Dogecoin” said the SpaceX CEO in a tweet on Tuesday morning. In the minutes following Musk’s tweet, the price of DOGE immediately jumped 7% from $0.135 to $0.145 where it remains at the time of writing
Previous tweets from Musk have seen markets move far more substantially, with a recent announcement about using it for Tesla merchandise payments causing DOGE to surge over 25%. The current downturn may have something to do with it, but the smaller spike suggests Musk's power to move markets is beginning to fade.
I will eat a happy meal on tv if @McDonalds accepts Dogecoin
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 25, 2022
Around ten hours later, McDonald’s responded by stating, “Only if Tesla accepts Grimacecoin” making reference to a fake coin depicting a fuzzy purple McDonaldland mascot from the ‘80s called “Grimace”. Crypto opportunists were quick to respond, with Grimace Coin (Grimace) already minted on Binance Smart Chain. (Disclaimer: buying a memecoin created in the last few hours is not widely considered to be a wise financial move).
As always, mainstream media outlets have been quick to cover the billionaire's erratic online behavior, with the Wall Street Journal and The Independent further amplifying Musk's crypto tweets.
The billionaire is jumping on the bandwagon of McDonald’s crypto memes that have grown in popularity on Twitter recently. The fast food giant has become intrinsically linked to crypto markets during times of crisis, as influencers and investors post memes about needing to get a job at the fast food chain following th significant losses on crypto markets.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele — whose government recently bought the BTC dip, snapping up an extra 410 Bitcoin at $36,000 each— joined the trend on Jan. 23rd, uploading a poorly edited photo of him sporting a McDonald’s-branded hat and nametag.
#NewProfilePic pic.twitter.com/YVDlBoA2Cq
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) January 22, 2022
While crypto memes seem light-hearted, Musk has frequently used his enormous 71.5 million following on Twitter to cause upheaval in the crypto markets. Earlier this month, Musk announced that Dogecoin could be officially be used as payment for merch on the Tesla website, causing wild swings in its price, and his announcement about suspending Bitcoin's use for Tesla payments in mid-2021 caused markets to tank.
Musk’s erratic Twitter behavior has been the subject of intense criticism in the past, with the CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao (CZ) declaring: “Tweets that hurt other people’s finances are not funny, and irresponsible.”
Despite Tesla famously owning more than 42,000 Bitcoin at an average cost of $31,700 per coin, Musk seems more comfortable pumping Dogecoin, recently declaring to Time Magazine:
"Fundamentally, Bitcoin is not a good substitute for transactional currency. Even though it was created as a silly joke, Dogecoin is better suited for transactions.”
The billionaire went even further, stressing that Bitcoin's cost per transaction is high while its transactional volume is low compared to DOGE. As a result, Musk argued that Bitcoin would be better used as a store-of-value asset, and that DOGE is superior for spending and transactions.
Related: McDonald’s jumps on Bitcoin memewagon, Crypto Twitter responds
Supersize McShib: Shiba Inu the largest ERC-20 holding among ETH whales
According to data from WhaleStats, the 1,000 largest ETH wallets hold $2.35 billion worth of SHIB combined, representing around 9% of the total market cap.
New data suggests that Shiba Inu (SHIB) is the largest ERC-20 token holding amongst the top 1,000 Ethereum (ETH) whales.
According to data compiled by WhaleStats looking at the Ethereum-based token holdings of the largest ETH wallets, SHIB represents 21.68% of the combined market share at $2.35 billion. The next highest asset in terms of holdings is Crypto.com’s native token CRO, representing 5.54% at $603.9 million.
#ShibArmy Congrats! The King is coming back!
— WhaleStats - the top 1000 Ethereum richlist (@WhaleStats) November 17, 2021
#SHIB flipped #BEST, #OKB and #CRO to become biggest ERC-20 hodling (17.44%) among the top 1000 ETH wallets with total value of $2,371,207,191
Source: https://t.co/jGSeQ3uXfo pic.twitter.com/WVGOpmcYjf
According to data from Coingecko, SHIB is currently the eleventh highest-ranked crypto asset in terms of total market cap with $26.9 billion, suggesting that the ETH whales hold roughly 9% of all SHIB in circulation.
The fervent SHIB community has been on a mission to push crypto trading platforms such as Coinbase and Robinhood to list the asset. Its Change.org petition aimed at convincing them had received more than 530,000 signatures at the time of writing. Coinbase Pro listed SHIB back in late September.
One popular brand that gave the idea of accepting SHIB for payments a decidedly cool reception is fast-food giant McDonald's who replied to a tweet from “ShibArmy1365” calling on the firm to accept “SHIB for payment, please”.
Related: AMC Theatres CEO considers adding Shiba Inu as payment for ticket purchases
McDonald's wrote that “we appreciate hearing your interest and continuously evaluate the payments experience.”
Despite being the kind of non committal boilerplate brush-off corporate PR accounts tend to make, it didn’t stop the SHIB community from going into overdrive with the post receiving more than 500 retweets,1,400 likes and countless memes to boot.
“Appropriate response to build the hype. Can’t wait for the future!” Shib Social responded, while “ISHIB” chimed in with “Let’s Call it a McShib!”
Smile more $SHIB, happy looks good on you. pic.twitter.com/Wd7oIF3aym
— Siamand Sheikhi (@Siamand_Sheikhi) November 17, 2021
While it is unclear how McDonald’s will proceed, SHIB adoption has ramped up across the board this month. Crypto payments firm Coingate revealed on Nov. 11 that it opened up SHIB support so that 500 of its merchants can accept SHIB payments. The Samsung-backed digital wallet providers ZenGo also added the beloved dog meme token to its platform on Nov. 17.
Shib stands strong
Amid the recent pullback across the crypto market that began around Nov. 11, SHIB has taken a minimal hit of 4.1% to sit at $0.00004854 at the time of writing. However, after reaching an all-time high of $0.00008616 on Oct. 28, SHIB is down 43.6%.
While the price is on a downward trend, the asset’s popularity hasn’t waned, with the official SHIB Twitter account surpassing 2 million followers yesterday.
New Record: @Shibtoken surpasses 2 Million Followers on @Twitter. pic.twitter.com/lRh6Y4MP4A
— MILKSHAKE (@shibainuart) November 17, 2021
Beijing Presses Fast-Food Chain McDonald’s to Support Digital Yuan — China’s CBDC Expected to Launch in February
According to a recent report, Beijing is pressing the fast-food retail chain McDonald’s to support the digital yuan before the Winter Olympics in China scheduled for February 2022. The report notes that China is also pushing companies like Visa and Nike to join in on the central bank digital currency (CBDC) rollout. Chinese Government Pushes […]