Dogecoin v. Bitcoin: One of these will literally go to the moon

It takes years of planning and training to send an astronaut to the moon, but these days, moon-talks have become quite routine on Twitter. In fact, the same has become a race of sorts of late.

It has been a while since the DOGE community was hyped that they’re going to the moon, right? Wait, but will you buy that if you’re a Doge-fan? Of course not! Nevertheless, it wouldn’t be wrong to claim that DOGE is wherever it is today only because of its one-man-army – Elon Musk.

On 1 April, Elon Musk, the self-proclaimed “Dogefather,” went on to announce something that made the Dogecoin community go all bonkers. 

Later, on 10 May, after the SNL episode, he very thoughtfully announced that Dogecoin would be the “first crypto in space” and his company, SpaceX, was launching the Doge-1 satellite. 

Needless to say, Bitcoin supporters started feeling left out from the “race to the moon.” Out of nowhere, however, crypto-exchange platform BitMEX came to the rescue of the community by announcing its own participation in the aforementioned race. Ergo, Bitcoin might just be the first crypto to actually go to the moon, beating the popular dog coin in a race reminiscent of the 1960s.

Robotics Company Astrobotic Technology Inc. is all set to send its first commercial lander “to the moon” in the fourth quarter this year and BitMEX is joining hands with it to send Bitcoin to the planetary body. While Bitcoin going to the moon has usually had a metaphorical meaning, Astrobotic’s mission seems to have serious intent. The exchange’s recent statement stated

“We’ve nothing against Dog Money, we felt it was only right to help Bitcoin get there first.”

To the moon, but how? 

Cryptocurrencies, in their very essence, are meant to be digital/virtual in nature and Bitcoin is the flag bearer of the very same herd of currencies. So, one may now wonder, how would the flagship coin end up going to the moon when it physically doesn’t exist in the very first place? Well, BitMEX has it all covered. In its announcement, it highlighted, 

“BitMEX will mint one-of-a-kind physical Bitcoin, similar to Casascius coins of 2013, which will be delivered to the moon by Astrobotic.”

The coin will hold one Bitcoin at an address that will be publicly released and would additionally be secured underneath a tamper-evident hologram covering. The coin would further display BitMEX’s name, the mission’s name, the date it was minted, and the price of Bitcoin at the time of minting. 

Expressing his excitement for the mission, the CEO of BitMEX Alex Höptner, stated, 

“For all the talk of Bitcoin going to the moon, we’re actually going to do it.”

The “to the moon” narrative that initially referred to a pump in the price of coins has now translated itself quite literally. Sending a crypto to the moon might have been Musk’s original idea, but the same might now help Bitcoin take ‘one giant leap,’ all thanks to BitMEX.

Now, while Musk hasn’t officially announced the dates of his DOGE-1 mission scheduled for next year, it’d surely be interesting to see who ends up winning the race to the moon!