Published 08:12 IST, February 5th 2021
Elon Musk tweets in support of Dogecoin cryptocurrency, boosts market value
Elon Musk returned on Twitter after a break and posted a series of tweets in support of Dogecoin, which saw the value of the cryptocurrency surge by 50%.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk's support for cryptocurrency Dogecoin increased the value of the digital currency by 50% on Thursday. Musk returned on Twitter after a two-day break on February 4 and posted a series of tweets in support of Dogecoin, which saw the value of the cryptocurrency surge by almost three cents, closing at $0.05204 per coin. Dogecoin, which was started as a joke in 2013 by two software workers, now has a market value of $6.3 billion. The Dogecoin uses the famous meme dog Shiba Inu as its mascot.
'People's crypto'
Musk posted a couple of tweets in support of Dogecoin, one of which read, "Dogecoin is people's crypto." Earlier last week, when Musk changed his Twitter biography to just '#bitcoin', the stocks of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency jumped as much as 20 percent, triggering a meme fest on Twitter.
Dogecoin is not the only company, whose market value surged after a tweet from Tesla founder Elon Musk. In the last couple of weeks, Musk has helped shoot stocks of companies such as GameStop, Etsy, and CD Projekt. Gamestop recorded a rapid surge in its stock after Musk posted "Gamestonk" in support of the retail company, causing billions of dollars in losses to short-sellers, with whom the billionaire has an old enmity.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin is a digital currency that was invented in 2009 by an unknown person or persons. The price of a single bitcoin currently amounts to over 27,00,000 in Indian Rupees. On December 16, 2020, the price of the Bitcoin trading reached a record high, hitting the $20,000 mark at 8:44 a.m. EST as it surpassed that value by almost 12 percent sitting at $21,786.06 on December 17.
Updated 08:12 IST, February 5th 2021