Elon musk is at it again.
More than half a year after his remarks on Bitcoin’s energy consumption sent the top coin plummeting, the mogul widely known as an influence in crypto has sent out a tweet that many attribute as causing a 30% rise in Dogecoin in the last market cycle.
“Tesla will make some merch buyable with Doge & see how it goes,” Musk wrote cryptically through the short-form social media outlet that so often has readers scrying the tea leaves. He didn’t say what, exactly, people can buy with DOGE.
Chart activity shows Dogecoin spiking up to $0.20, about a third higher than its local nadir.
However, since Musk went on Saturday Night Live in May and spiked DOGE much higher, up to over 60 cents, the coin is down more than 50% from those highs.
Remember that Dogecoin was conceived as a joke, and now has to contend with other dog coins like Shiba Inu – and even newer altcoin offerings.
“Elonomics (CRYPTO:ELONOM) began trading on Oct. 25,” wrote Keith Speight at Motley Fool Nov. 16. “It’s inspired by and named after the Tesla leader. Elonomics even uses a picture of a person who resembles Musk wearing a Viking horned helmet on its logo.”
Noting the breakthrough performance of both DOGE and SHIB, Speight provides the following:
“Anyone who bought (DOGE) 12 months ago and held on is sitting on a gain of nearly 9,300%,” he writes. “(SHIB) has been a much bigger winner so far this year. It’s up a mind-blowing 95,279,000% or so over the last year… But it will be very difficult for Dogecoin and Shiba Inu to repeat these performances over the next 12 months.”
So what will the future hold? If it’s up to the “Dogefather” himself, DOGE is going to be one of the most popular altcoins around, at least for a while. Tying a coin to merchandise has spiked cryptocurrency before – after Musk intimated that Tesla would accept Bitcoin for car payments last year, BTC soared. As to whether one man should have the power to make or break a blockchain asset, though … we’ll let you make that call. Hit us back in comments and tell us your thoughts.