Elon Musk Considers Idea Of Creating New Crypto If Dogecoin Can't Scale

Elon Musk — tech tycoon and CEO of electric car manufacturer Tesla Inc. TSLA — suggested that he might be willing to consider creating a new cryptocurrency if Dogecoin DOGE/USD does not achieve the needed features with future updates.
What Happened: Musk said this in response to a tweet on Saturday, where someone asked why Musk doesn't make a new cryptocurrency with the right features "from scratch."

Musk said he would do it "only if Doge can't do it", adding that it would be a "big pain in the neck to create another one."

In an earlier tweet, the Tesla CEO also said he would like Dogecoin to increase its block speed 10 times, increase its block size 10 times and drop its transaction fees 100 times. Musk also recently said that he is working with the coin’s developers to increase the coin’s efficiency.

Playing With Blocks: Cryptocurrency transactions are processed by including them in so-called blocks where they are saved forever. Changing how this is done could bring several advantages to the network.

The lower block time means blocks could be created more frequently and transactions could be processed more quickly. A larger block size would allow more transactions to fit into a single block. And with lower fees, transactions would be cheaper.

That being said, those changes also have their downsides.

With a shorter block time and larger block size, the processing power and memory required to run the network would increase, potentially decreasing Dogecoin's decentralization by forcing network maintenance into the hands of a smaller number of individuals with more resources.

While lower fees would in theory decrease the incentive given to miners to secure the network, this is not as much a clear-cut conclusion. With the other changes made to the network, the coin would be able to support many more transactions, and that would in turn keep the real incentive about the same.

Learn more: How to Buy Dogecoin