Yahoo Finance Cryptocurrency dogecoin soars after Elon Musk tweets
Cryptocurrency dogecoin (DOGE-USD) soared on Thursday morning after Tesla founder Elon Musk tweeted about it.
Musk sent out a flurry of tweets about the cryptocurrency around 8am UK time. He first tweeted just the word “Doge”, followed by “Dogecoin is the people’s crypto”, and “No highs, no lows, only Doge”, as well as a Lion King meme of him holding up the dogecoin dog as if it were Simba.
The tweets sent the price of dogecoin spiking against the dollar. The cryptocurrency was up 45% against the dollar to $0.0484 at around 9.30am.
“Anything Musk tweets about shoots higher because he has such a strong following both on social media and as a businessman,” said Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at Markets.com.
“People will literally invest in him and his ideas, and don’t care what the fundamentals are.”
Tesla (TSLA) and SpaceX founder Musk has previously tweeted about dogecoin, sending the price spiking higher in December. Last week he appeared to tweet a meme referencing the cryptocurrency.
Speaking on the social media app Clubhouse last Sunday, Musk said his tweets about dogecoin were “just meant to be jokes”.
He added that "fate loves irony” and said: “Arguably the most entertaining outcome and the most ironic outcome would be dogecoin becomes the currency of earth in the future,” according to Newsweek.
Dogecoin was created in 2013 largely as a joke. The crypto takes its name and logo from the Shiba Inu dog in the “doge” meme that became popular on the internet that same year. Dogecoin can be used for payments in much the same way as bitcoin but is far smaller and less well known or used.
Dogecoin has been caught up in the recent surge of populism that has swept financial markets over the last two weeks. Some Reddit users on the r/WallStreetBets have talked up the cryptocurrency’s potential, alongside more popular ideas such as the stocks GameStop (GME) and AMC (AMC). Dogecoin rallied as much as 500% last week, amid broader volatility in multiple financial assets.
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