OREANDA-NEWS. In 2022, SpaceX will launch a Doge-1 satellite to the Moon under a contract paid for with the Dogecoin cryptocurrency. This was announced on Monday, May 10, on Twitter by the company's founder Elon Musk. «The first cryptocurrency in space. The first meme in space», he wrote.

The Doge-1 satellite is owned by the Canadian company «Geometric Energy Corporation». The 40-kilogram device will launch a Falcon 9 launch vehicle into orbit in the first quarter of next year. «This mission will demonstrate the possibilities of using cryptocurrencies beyond Earth's orbit and lay the foundation for interplanetary trade», the company said in a statement.

The Dogecoin cryptocurrency was created as a joke in 2013 in honor of the Internet meme Doge. Since the beginning of 2021, Reddit users have been holding a «To the Moon» flash mob, co-ordinating Dogecoin purchases and aiming to «send this cryptocurrency to the Moon» so that it's value reaches one dollar.

Elon Musk supported the flash mob with several tweets about Dogecoin — after that, it's value began to rise sharply. On April 1, he wrote, that SpaceX would send Dogecoin to the Moon, and the cryptocurrency exchange rate rose by 20 percent. On the contrary, after Musk's recent appearance on Saturday Night Live, where he also joked about Dogecoin, it's rate began to fall. Now, by capitalization, Dogecoin is considered the fourth largest cryptocurrency in the world.