Elon Musk’s tweets about dogecoin continues to push the value of the ‘meme cryptocurrency’ even higher – as it’s revealed Tesla has invested $1.5 billion in bitcoin and says the company will start accepting it as payment for cars ‘in the near future’.
Dogecoin, which was largely created as a joke based on a popular internet meme, has surged 112 percent in the last week. The cryptocurrency was at a record high of $0.08097 – up 24 percent in 24 hours – on Monday, according to CoinMarketCap data.
Dogecoin’s market value is now at $10.8 billion and is currently the 10th ranked coin on CoinMarketCap.
Musk first gave dogecoin a shout out on Twitter last week, which sent its price to record highs over the weekend and sparked concern over his ability to move markets.
Late on Sunday, in a fresh endorsement for the cryptocurrency, Musk tweeted: ‘Who let the Doge Out’ – mimicking lines from the Baha Men’s song.
Elon Musk’s tweets about dogecoin are pushing the value of the ‘meme cryptocurrency’ even higher after the billionaire tweeted an instructional video and called it the future currency of earth
Musk called it ‘the future currency of Earth’ after putting up a poll for his followers
Musk first gave dogecoin a shout out on Twitter last week, which sent its price to record highs over the weekend
He also tweeted an instructional video, saying: ‘Ð is for Ðogecoin!’ and called it ‘the future currency of Earth’ after putting up a poll for his followers.
The coin has also since been endorsed by rapper Snoop Dogg and Kiss rocker Gene Simmons.
Snoop Dogg tweeted an image of a dog tagged ‘Snoop Doge’, while Simmons fired off a series of tweets including one that said: ‘Woopie!!! @dogecoin skyrocketing…to the moon. HODLE!’
Following the attention from Snoop and Simmons, Musk tweeted an image of the trio in which they had been superimposed on a scene from the Lion King.
Dogecoin has the same technical underpinning as better-known cyrptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, but is little used and had long traded for less than one cent.
It was created in 2013 and based on a then-popular internet meme of a Shiba Inu dog.
It isn’t clear if Musk owns any of the cryptocurrency.
Musk’s tweets last week in support of dogecoin included a picture of a rocket soaring past the moon with the caption ‘Doge’ and an image from the Lion King that showed himself holding up the dog from the doge meme.
‘Dogecoin is the people’s crypto,’ another tweet read. ‘No need to be a gigachad to own.’
‘No highs, no lows, only Doge.’
The coin has also since been endorsed by rapper Snoop Dogg who tweeted an image of a dog tagged ‘Snoop Doge’
Kiss rocker Gene Simmons fired off a series of tweets including one that said: ‘Woopie!!! @dogecoin skyrocketing…to the moon. HODLE!’
Following the attention from Snoop and Simmons, Musk tweeted an image of the trio in which they had been superimposed on a scene from the Lion King
Musk has previously drawn sanctions for the Securities and Exchange Commission for his tweets about Tesla, where he is CEO and a major shareholder.
He settled with the SEC over the complaints, which were spurred by a tweet musing about taking the company private and another sharing production projections.
Publicly traded companies are regulated in how they provide forward-looking statements, in order to ensure investors have equal access to news that can move share prices significantly.
Cryptocurrencies are not regulated in the same way and Musk’s tweets about dogecoin are unlikely to be a violation of any law or regulation, regardless of whether he owns the cryptocurrency.
Still, his ability to move markets at ease with his tweets has drawn both admiration and concern from observers.
DailyMail.com has contacted the SEC for comment.
It comes after Musk on Monday launched a pair of potential game-changing shifts for bitcoin after Tesla announced it had invested $1.5 billion and said it will start accepting the cryptocurrency as payment for its cars in the near future.
Musk’s tweets last week in support of dogecoin included a picture of a rocket soaring past the moon with the caption ‘Doge’ and an image from the Lion King that showed himself holding up the dog from the doge meme
Bitcoin’s price surged 10 percent to a record-high of $44,000 soon after Tesla’s disclosure on Monday morning. Shares of Tesla were up 1.8 percent off the back of the announcement in early morning trading.
Tesla’s announcement, which was buried deep in a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing, follows several social media posts by Musk that have sent the currency and other assets higher in recent weeks.
It came just days after Musk, who is a well-known supporter of bitcoin, briefly changed the bio of his Twitter account, which has 46 million followers, to say ‘#bitcoin’.
Musk said a week ago that bitcoin was ‘on the verge’ of being more widely accepted among investors and in December asked if it was possible to do large transactions in the currency.
‘He’s now putting his money (shareholders’) where his mouth is,’ Markets.com analyst Neil Wilson said.
‘But given his recent comments – and adding #Bitcoin to his Twitter bio on January 29th – it also raises a real question about possible market manipulation.’
Analysts said it could help accelerate a move for bitcoin move towards the mainstream that has seen both Paypal, also co-founded by Musk, and huge global money manager BlackRock move to accept the currency.
Eric Turner, vice president of market intelligence at cryptocurrency research and data firm Messari, said: ‘I think we will see an acceleration of companies looking to allocate to Bitcoin now that Tesla has made the first move.
‘One of the largest companies in the world now owns Bitcoin and by extension, every investor that owns Tesla (or even just an S&P 500 fund) has exposure to it as well.’