In brief
- The NBA’s Dallas Mavericks have seen a rise in customers using Dogecoin to purchase team merchandise.
- Owner Mark Cuban tweeted that the team will “never sell” the DOGE it receives.
Dogecoin (DOGE) is surging right now, setting an all-time high price just above $0.11 within the last 24 hours—a more than 100% leap over the last week. Now, one of Dogecoin’s highest-profile proponents says that one of his companies is holding the meme-based cryptocurrency on its balance sheet for good. And no, it’s not Elon Musk.
Instead, it’s billionaire investor Mark Cuban—his NBA team the Dallas Mavericks is holding onto any Dogecoin that the team's fans spend on tickets and merch. Recently, Cuban revealed that the Mavs had partnered with BitPay to accept Dogecoin for purchases. Last night, Cuban tweeted that the team has seen a spike in DOGE spending, and that it won’t part with the coin at all.
“FYI, the Mavs sales in Dogecoin have increased 550% over the past month,” Cuban tweeted in response to a tweet about the rise in the coin’s price. “We have now sold more than 122k DOGE in merchandise! We will never sell 1 single DOGE ever. So keep buying.”
Granted, 122,000 DOGE only works out to about $15,000 in sales so far—surely a drop in the bucket when it comes to the NBA championship-winning team’s regular merchandise haul. The more interesting detail is that the team plans to hold onto its growing DOGE stash for good, seemingly eyeing potential future gains on the horizon.
FYI, the Mavs sales in @dogecoin have increased 550pct over the past month. We have now sold more than 122k Doge in merchandise ! 🚀🚀🚀 We will never sell 1 single Doge ever. So keep buying @dallasmavsshop https://t.co/li32cdtcED
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) April 14, 2021
At the very least, it’s another sign that Cuban is having some fun with crypto. And getting a lot of attention in the process. Cuban’s tweet has more than 14,000 interactions as of this writing, and in a March press release marking the acceptance of Dogecoin for Mavericks gear, Cuban acknowledged the marketing element of taking in the meme coin.
“We have chosen to do so because sometimes in business you have to do things that are fun, engaging, and hopefully generate a lot of PR,” Cuban said in the release. “So we will take Dogecoin, today, tomorrow and possibly forever more. For those of you who would like to learn more about Dogecoin we strongly encourage you to talk to your teenagers who are on TikTok and ask them about it."
An NBA team holding DOGE on its balance sheet is a twist on the recent trend of corporations buying up stashes of Bitcoin to hold, led by MicroStrategy and its CEO, outspoken Bitcoin proponent Michael Saylor. The firm now owns some $5.7 billion worth of Bitcoin following its initial purchase in July 2020 and subsequent additions, and now is even paying its board of directors in BTC.
Elon Musk’s electric car firm Tesla got in on the action in February, when it purchased $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin, marking the most valuable company to date to put cryptocurrency on its balance sheet as a reserve asset. Tesla’s move boosted the price of BTC at the time, and Bitcoin has continued to rise in the months since, setting a new all-time high just yesterday. Tesla has since offered the option for buyers to purchase cars using BTC.
Musk, ever the fan of memes, has repeatedly tweeted about Dogecoin and helped boost its price in the past. He even called himself the “CEO of Dogecoin” in his Twitter bio at one point. But until his companies announce that they’re holding the volatile token, it seems that Cuban has one-upped his crypto-backing comrade in this respect. Your move, Elon.