Elon Musk breaks his very brief Twitter silence to tout ‘meme cryptocurrency’ DogeCoin – pushing the asset up 60% over concerns over Tesla founder’s ability to move markets with such ease
- Musk sent a flurry of tweets on Thursday with the word ‘joke’ cryptocurrency DogeCoin
- It followed his promise to take a break from Twitter after sparking GameStop frenzy
- DogeCoin surged a whopping 60% in the wake of its tweets, to $ 6 billion market cap
- The crypto was created in 2013 and based on an internet memo from a Shiba Inu
- “I’ve become a meme, Destroyer of shorts,” Musk tweeted cryptically
- Musk was previously sanctioned by the SEC for material tweets about Tesla
- Some expressed both admiration and concern for its ability to move markets
Elon Musk has broken his silence on Twitter to promote the ‘prank’ cryptocurrency DogeCoin, raising the asset as much as 60 percent and raising concerns about Tesla’s CEO’s ability to move markets.
Musk, who had vowed earlier this week to “ stay off Twitter for a while, ” returned early Thursday on Thursday with a wave of memes promoting the obscure and oft-derided cryptocurrency.
DogeCoin has the same technical base as more famous cyrptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, but is little used and has long been traded for less than a cent. It was created in 2013 and based on a then-popular internet memo of a Shiba Inu dog.
Musk’s tweets included a photo of a rocket hovering past the moon with the caption ‘Doge’ and an image of the Lion King showing him holding up the dog from the Doge meme.
Elon Musk has broken his silence on Twitter to promote the ‘joke’ cryptocurrency DogeCoin, which makes the asset soar a whopping 60 percent
‘Dogecoin is the crypto of the people,’ read another tweet. “You don’t have to be a gigachad to own.”
“No highs, no lows, just Doge,” he added in a tweet at 12:27 pm on the west coast.
His tweeting went on for hours, until after 2 a.m. Pacific Time. “I’ve become a meme, Destroyer of shorts,” he said in a final tweet, apparently referring to short sellers betting against stocks.
Musk is notoriously antagonistic about short sellers, and his own Tesla was one of the toughest short positions on the market for years.
It was unclear whether someone is short-selling DogeCoin, or whether markets exist to do this by volume.
Regardless, Musk’s tweets sent DogeCoin up again after falling off all time highs last week in the wake of other cryptic Musk tweets found to support the crypto.
DodgeCoin rose a whopping 60% on Thursday after falling from its all-time highs last week. Above, a monthly summary of the currency’s price shows its recent extreme volatility
At one point, DogeCoin was up 60 percent one day, with total market cap of over $ 6 billion.
By comparison, Bitcoin’s market cap was nearly $ 700 billion on Thursday.
Musk has previously sanctioned the Securities and Exchange Commission for his material tweets about Tesla, where he is CEO and majority shareholder.
He settled with the SEC over the complaints, spurred by a tweet musing about taking the company private, and another shared production forecasts.
Publicly traded companies are regulated in the way they make forward-looking statements to ensure that investors have equal access to news that can significantly affect stock prices.
Cryptocurrencies are not regulated in the same way and Musk’s tweets about DogeCoin are unlikely to violate any law or regulation regardless of whether he owns the cryptocurrency.
Still, his ability to move markets at ease with his tweets aroused both admiration and concern from observers.
Does it feel like Elon Musk is always trying to prove his opinion rules the market? Undermines credibility, ‘one person tweeted.
We saw this from Warren Buffett in 2011, where everyone rushed to track his investments until he started doing it on purpose. In the end, the market just didn’t care, ” one person tweeted, warning “ there is a limit ” to Musk’s influence via Twitter.
Musk was also criticized last week when his tweet about GameStop and the Reddit forum WallStreetBets helped spark a frenzied rally in the struggling video game retailer’s stock.
GameStop stock, which traded at around $ 4 last summer, rose to $ 483 last week before plunging on Monday. The stock fell another 40 percent on Thursday afternoon, around $ 57 USD.