Dogecoin Price Surges After 'Dogefather' Elon Musk's Tweet

Dogecoin’s price surged Wednesday after it became the subject of one of Elon Musk’s tweets.

Dogecoin’s price rose by 20% in the last 24 hours to 32 cents after Musk, Tesla’s CEO, referenced Dogecoin in a tweet, along with announcements of his surprise appearance on “Saturday Night Live” next week.

“The Dogefather. SNL May 8,” he wrote.

The latest surge in Dogecoin prices also was brought about by Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA team, who referenced the cryptocurrency in several posts this week.

“Because Doge is the one coin that people actually use for transactions. We take many others via @BitPay . But people spend their Doge and that means more businesses will start taking it. The greatest inhibitor to it's growth is that you can't spend the Doge you buy on Robinhood,” one tweet read.

The Wednesday surge comes after the cryptocurrency hit 45 cents earlier this month, which was a record high.

The meme-inspired digital currency began as a joke between IBM software engineer Billy Markus and Adobe software engineer Jackson Palmer in 2013. The two engineers combined Bitcoin and “doge” to make Dogecoin.

The cryptocurrency features an image of a Shiba Inu dog, which became a popular meme in 2013 and was used to express jokes about naps, diets and space exploration.

Dogecoin is now the sixth-largest digital coin. It currently has a total market value of nearly $42 billion.

The meme-inspired cryptocurrency has attracted a following in stock trading with Robinhood, which offers trades via a mobile app. On Tuesday, Robinhood co-CEO Vlad Tenev revealed that the company is working on introducing a feature that would let users withdraw various cryptocurrencies, including Dogecoin.

“We’re working on deposits and withdrawals!” Tenev tweeted. “Not just for DOGE, but for all coins on Robinhood Crypto.”

The recent surge in Dogecoin’s prices, however, has worried some investors who believe it’s a speculative bubble. David Kimberly, an analyst at Freetrade, referred to it as “a classic example of greater fool theory at play” in an interview with CNBC in early April.

“People are buying the cryptocurrency, not because they think it has any meaningful value, but because they hope others will pile in, push the price up, and then they can sell off and make a quick buck,” he said. “When everyone is doing this, the bubble eventually has to burst and you’re going to be left short-changed if you don’t get out in time. And it’s almost impossible to say when that’s going to happen.”