The ‘joke’ coin took off after the business magnate and space marvel came out in favor of it when breaking his self imposed Twitter silence.
Dogecoin wasn’t the first and most focal point of Musk’s Twitter activity of course. He first broke his self-imposed Twitter silence (which lasted a grand total of 48 hours) to post regarding the launch of his Starlink satellites, which was the subject matter referred to in the majority of his multiple tweets yesterday. However, along the way Dogecoin got mentioned, and retail traders took notice.
‘The People’s Crypto’
Musk appeared to endorse the parody coin in his tweet dubbing it “the people’s crypto”, which already sparked a surge of buying activity. However, things really went to town when he went on to tweet further dogecoin endorsements, including a Lion King meme, in which Musk’s face is imposed over Rafiki’s, who is holding aloft Simba, with the face of the Shiba meme dog that appears on coins. The value of the coin has surged 50% on average, with the value jumping up and down in correlation with the timing of Musk’s tweets.
Is the Joke Coin No Longer a Laughing Matter?
The crypto coin was created as something of a joke back in 2013 by software developers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, and uses the “Doge” meme from where it gets its name as its symbol. Dogecoin is still something of a joke, however it is also an actual functioning cryptocurrency with an instant payment system and everything to boot. It’s available on most of the major online crypto trading sites, including Binance and Kraken, and has experienced price surges in the past.
The price has risen 800% throughout the year, but does Musk’s endorsement mean that Dogecoin is now a sound investment? Answer: Probably not, according to the experts.
A Hype Driven Fad
In all likelihood, this will prove to be another “pump and dump” the likes of which the meme coin has experienced in the past. The world’s richest man has tweeted about, people have reacted and bought it up like crazy, the value has soared. Fast forward to next week, this will most likely be all but forgotten and the value will drop once more. The only thing that can really drive the value of a halfway joke coin like this hype, which is something that’s very unlikely to sustain.
Musk himself has even said in the past that the “jokes” he makes about Dogecoin are “just meant to be jokes”, so that goes some way to telling us how serious his endorsement is of Dogecoin and how seriously anyone should take it overall.
