Faint hopes of dogecoin (DOGE) being included in the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E.) were dented on Sunday as the department’s figurehead Elon Musk squashed any plans of adding the memecoin.
“There are no plans for the government to use dogecoin or anything,” Musk said during a speech at the America PAC town hall in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
“I was going to call it Government Efficiency Commission, but that’s a super boring name. Then the internet said it needs to be the Department of Government Efficiency. I was like Internet is right,” he added.
DOGE prices are down 3.5% in the past 24 hours, in line with a broader market drop. While there have been no firm plans to include the token in the controversial non-governmental agency, its introduction in August had sparked several namesake tokens and birthed the start of a multi-month rally in dogecoin.
The official site even sported a dogecoin logo for a few hours on the day after Trump’s inauguration, giving more credence to rumors of the joke token playing a role in the new agency.
D.O.G.E seeks to make government spending of taxpayer money more efficient while streamlining departments that handle spending. It has saved an estimated $130 billion after a formal start in January, data shows, with an average $840 saving for taxpayers.
