Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., will arrive at the Axel Springer Award ceremony in Berlin, Germany on Tuesday, December 1, 2020.
Liesa Johannssen-Koppitz | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Elon Musk came out as a believer in bitcoin on Friday – and now he’s doubling down.
The billionaire Tesla boss added the hashtag #bitcoin to his Twitter bio last week, in a move that helped boost the cryptocurrency’s price by a whopping 20% briefly.
In a discussion about the popular audio app Clubhouse late Sunday, Musk confirmed that he was a supporter of bitcoin.
“I have to watch what I’m saying here because some of these things can really move the market,” Musk said. “Many friends of mine have long tried to convince me to work with bitcoin.”
Musk said he once ate a slice of “bitcoin cake” given to him by a friend in 2013, and that he “clearly … should have bought at least bitcoin 8 years ago – talk about being late to the party. “
“I think bitcoin is a good thing right now, and I’m a bitcoin advocate,” said Musk.
“I think bitcoin is really on the verge of widespread adoption by conventional finance folks.”
Musk added that he has no “strong opinion” on other virtual currencies. He has tweeted about the meme-based cryptocurrency dogecoin in the past, and in 2019 indicated that it was his ‘favorite cryptocurrency’.
Last week, dogecoin shot up a whopping 800% in the space of 24 hours after a tweet from Musk was taken by Reddit users to indicate that he was throwing his support behind the token.
“Every now and then I make jokes about dogecoin, but they’re really just jokes,” Musk said on Sunday. “Dogecoin was created as a joke to make fun of cryptocurrencies.”
“But fate likes irony,” he added jokingly. “The most entertaining outcome and the most ironic outcome would be that dogecoin will become Earth’s currency in the future.”
Cryptocurrency markets were largely unmoved by Musk’s comments, with bitcoin and dogecoin actually falling slightly shortly after he spoke. Dogecoin was still up 40% in the past 24 hours, after a massive slump over the weekend.
Bitcoin has more than quadrupled in price over the course of last year. It then hit a new all-time high of nearly $ 42,000 in early 2021. Bullish investors say the digital currency has been boosted by increased institutional interest and the perception that it is a safe haven on par with gold.