Dogecoin price skyrockets after billionaire Elon Musk referred to himself as ‘The Dogefather’ on Twitter ahead of his appearance on US comedy show SNL.
The meme-inspired cryptocurrency jumped from $0.25 to $0.30 in less than 15 minutes on Wednesday morning, recovering its losses from last week and pushing it back towards the record highs that it touched earlier this month.
Dogecoin as of press time was trading above 31 cents after it had touched a 24-hour high of 34 cents according to data from coindesk.com.
The Tesla CEO tweeted Wednesday “The Dogefather SNL May 8”, referring to his hosting spot on Saturday Night Live which was announced last week. This was hinted to imply the SpaceX and Tesla CEO would speak about dogecoin during his appearance on the show.
Dogecoin is parody crypto derived from the “Doge” meme created in 2013, which has seen a price increase of over 6000% in 2021, thanks in no small way to the attention garnered by the Tesla CEO.
It was boosted by the GameStop saga at the start of January 2021, soaring over 800% as Reddit users, who also pumped stocks such as GameStop and AMC, drew their attention to the coin.
The Shiba-Inu-themed token now has a market capitalization of nearly $50 billion, making it the seventh-largest cryptocurrency in the world. Earlier this month, dogecoin briefly eclipsed Ripple’s XRP to be the fourth largest before a heavy selloff that plunged it as low as 20 cents from its record high of 45 cents.
