Elon Musk hasn’t earned the name “crypto king” for no reason, with his latest tweet is proving it.
Elon Musk hasn’t earned the name “crypto king” and “dogefather” for no reason.
His decision to type a single word into social media earlier this week has seen a flurry of activity in the cryptocurrency realm.
The billionaire entrepreneur replied to a tweet on Monday about an update to the dogecoin network and it sent prices surging.
Mr Musk wrote a single word: “Important.”
But it soon acquired more likes than the original tweet and saw a temporary rise in the cryptocurrency.
According to the tweet that the Tesla CEO brought attention to, only 205 computers were already running doge’s newest update.
However, once more computers run the upgrade, the network will be more “secure” and will “lower the transaction fees”.
Within 24 hours of the tweet, dogecoin rose by 1.52 per cent to US $0.2734 (A$0.37).
By Friday, it was up to US$0.2911 (A$0.39) at time of writing.
The phenomenon of the tech tycoon’s tweets buoying the market has been called the “Musk effect” by some.
In May, a tweet by Mr Musk was credited for a rise of more than 29 per cent in one particular cryptocurrency.
Then a month later, Mr Musk caused a 10 per cent rise in an altcoin called shiba inu.
When Musk tweeted, “My shiba inu will be named Floki,” in June, shiba inu coin’s price spiked about 10 per cent.
Musk is a huge believer in dogecoin.
A few months ago, he said dogecoin could easily “become the currency of Earth” and beat other cryptocurrencies, especially bitcoin, “hands down”.
Bitcoin is soon going to update its system with the taproot update in November.
Dogecoin was first created in 2013 as a joke payment system, but many, including Musk, believe it will make lots of money in the future.
Musk has previously said that anything he says about doge should not be taken seriously.
Bitcoin is currently the leader the cryptocurrency industry, with a single coin selling for US$48,482 (A$65,530) at time of writing.