Elon Musk’s influential impact on Cryptocurrency
Musk’s cryptic crypto connection and its global ripple effect
Dogecoin: From Meme to Mainstream.
Dogecoin was released in December 2013. Taking its influence from the famous doge meme which was an image of a Shiba Inu dog with multicoloured text that appears as the dog’s “thought bubbles”
The meme was based on a photograph of a female Shiba Inu dog called Kabosu who was adopted by a Japanese kindergarten teacher, Atsuko Satō, from an animal shelter.
Launched as a joke to make fun of cryptocurrencies, it quickly became an instant hit. At one stage becoming the seventh largest cryptocurrency in the world. It currently has a market cap of nearly $10 billion.
When Musk first tweeted abut Dogecoin in April 2019 saying. “Dogecoin might be my fav cryptocurrency. It’s pretty cool.” It sent the price up by 100% over the next 3 days. Musk’s tweeting brought the cryptocurrency into the mainstream which is why he is sometimes referred to as the “Dogefather.”
When the richest man in the world tweets - the markets take note and respond accordingly and instantaneously.
In fact, investors have accused Musk of deliberately driving up Dogecoin’s price more than 36000% before letting it crash.
At one point, Musk replaced Twitter’s blue bird logo with Dogecoin’s Shiba Inu logo leading to another 30% spike in price, before selling $124m worth of Dogecoin.
At first glance it may appear that this is about Musk’s influence on Crypto. But crypto is influencing Musk’s own ventures, from Tesla’s Bitcoin investments to the potential integration of cryptocurrencies in space travel with SpaceX.
Tesla’s Bitcoin Purchase: A Boom for Bitcoin
In February of 2021, Musk announced that Tesla had invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin. Following on this news, Bitcoin’s price surged by over 23%
Musk’s endorsement of Bitcoin added a significant level of legitimacy to the cryptocurrency.
Tesla’s decision to allocate a portion of its balance sheet to Bitcoin marked a turning point in the corporate adoption of cryptocurrencies.
This move was hailed as groundbreaking as it signalled that established companies were willing to embrace digital assets as a store of value, moving cryptocurrency into the mainstream, financial arena.
Cryptocurrency represents the forefront of a new financial frontier where the traditional rules of money are being rewritten by new technology.
That’s a wrap for this three part series folks.
If you would like a fascinating read, see Fall of the Cryptoqueen here.