Virtual Currency 'Dogecoin' Adopted as Payment Method by US Online Shopping Mall

Increasing Demand for Payment Method Acceptance

On the morning of the 20th, when the prices of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin plummeted, an employee at Bithumb Gangnam Customer Center in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, was checking cryptocurrency prices. The government announced the day before that it would conduct a special government-wide crackdown from this month until June to prevent money laundering, fraud, and illegal activities using virtual currencies such as Bitcoin.
[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunju Lee] The cryptocurrency Dogecoin has been adopted as a payment method by a U.S. online electronics retailer.

On the 19th (local time), Newegg, an online retailer primarily dealing in electronics, announced that customers can pay with their Dogecoin holdings by selecting 'BitPay' in the payment section. Newegg also allowed Bitcoin as a payment method back in 2014.

Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency created in 2013 by software developers who adopted the Japanese Shiba Inu dog, popular as an internet meme at the time, as the currency's mascot. Although it did not attract much attention from investors initially, it has surged this year after Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, personally invested and tweeted about it several times.

Demands to accept Dogecoin as a payment method are also increasing. According to Fox Business, a petition on the world's largest petition site 'Change.org' calls for the e-commerce giant Amazon to accept Dogecoin as a payment method, garnering support from 130,000 people. The petition emphasizes that Dogecoin is "fast, cheap, and stable," and that among major cryptocurrencies, it has "the lowest transaction fees and the largest supply."