The billionaire is a crypto evangelist and influencer.
Elon Musk is a fan of crypto and does not hide it.
He is especially a champion of bitcoin and the meme coin dogecoin.
Dogecoin could be used to purchase merch from the electric vehicle company.
“Tesla merch buyable with Dogecoin,” the billionaire said in January.
During the grand opening of the Tesla factory in Austin, Texas on April 7, the tech tycoon ended a nod to dogecoin by slipping the image of the most famous of the meme coins into the celebrations.
This tribute helped boost the price of dogecoin almost immediately.
Dogecoin gained 4.5% to $0.149467 to a market value of $19.74 billion, according to CoinGecko. Shiba Inu, the other meme coin was only up 2.6%, while bitcoin was up just 0.6%
This is the second time in less than a week that Elon Musk has spiked dogecoin prices.
When the billionaire announced a few days ago that he owns more than 9% of Twitter (TWTR) – Get Twitter, Inc. Report, dogecoin prices jumped more than 10%. Crypto fans are hoping Musk can push the social network to embrace dogecoin.
Dogecoin features the image of the Shiba Inu dog as its logo and namesake. It’s considered the first of the so-called “meme coins,” which are inspired by a meme or has some humorous characteristic.
It was created by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, who decided to create a payment system as a “joke,” saying that the coin is making fun of the wild speculation in cryptocurrencies.
