Watch: Weather Balloon Takes Dogecoin to Space as Tribute to Elon Musk

While many people are waiting for Elon Musk — who has repeatedly put his weight behind Dogecoin on social media — to send the meme currency to the Moon, a US-based YouTuber has actually tried to do something of that sort. On the tech billionaire’s 50th birthday on June 28, Reid Williamson sent an actual Dogecoin to space with a weather balloon. Williamson posted a video titled, “I sent a literal Dogecoin to space” on his YouTube channel that showed him and his friends preparing to achieve the challenging feat.

The video showed Williamson and his friends first identifying the launchpad. Once they zeroed in on an open green field, they began setting up the balloon system and tying up the cryptocurrency payload to it. After a few attempts that went south, the team finally managed to get a successful launch. A camera attached to the payload showed the bird’s-eye view of Earth as the Dogecoin escaped far away from it. Later, the weather balloon returned to Earth and landed a few miles from the site it was launched from.

Separately, Williamson also shared the news on his Twitter account.

A user, @lilyledyard_, commented on Williamson’s tweet to congratulate Musk but also pointed out that the billionaire is yet to follow through on his promise.

Noticing that comment, another user, @Doge4faithfull, asked everyone to be “respectful with Musk” for his birthday. “A trip to the Moon takes eight days, close to 200 hours. Not one hour. That’s Earth. I’m very glad they did it anyway, and as a gift to Musk. Not to shame him,” the post read.

The person added Musk will be sending a satellite that would “process transactions for us all,” something that no other digital coin has done.

When user @williamson_reid asked whether that was real, Williamson said “yes.”

Some other people congratulated the YouTuber and his team.

In May, Musk had promised that his firm SpaceX will put “a literal Dogecoin on the literal Moon.” In a tweet, he said the commercial space exploration company will launch the “DOGE-1 Mission to the Moon” early next year.

The tech tycoon has often supported Dogecoin on the social media. As of 11:12am IST on July 1, Dogecoin price in India stood at Rs. 18.28.