By Samuel Indyk
Investing.com – A tweet by Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk sent the price of Dogecoin higher by as much as 20% on Wednesday morning.
Writing about his future appearance as guest host of popular television show Saturday Night Live, Musk appeared to refer to himself as ‘The Dogefather’.
The cryptocurrency, which last week became the fifth most valuable coin after a mammoth run, jumped from around $0.25 to above $0.30 in a matter of minutes following the tweet.
However, the price remains well below the record highs hit above $0.42 hit last week as retail traders celebrated ‘Dogecoin Day’ on April 20th.
This is not the first time Musk has tweeted about the meme-inspired cryptocurrency. Previously he has announced he bought some Dogecoin for his son, X Æ A-Xii.
It is unclear whether Musk himself owns any Dogecoin personally.
The latest discussion on cryptocurrencies comes as Tesla announced they had sold 10% of their Bitcoin holdings in the last quarter, helping the company turn a record profit.
Musk stated that Tesla sold some of their holdings “essentially to prove liquidity of Bitcoin as an alternative to holding cash on its balance sheet”.
Referring to his personal holdings, Musk said he had not sold any of his own Bitcoin.
At 10:00BST, Dogecoin trades above $0.31 and has gained 14% in the last 24 hours. Bitcoin trades above $54,000 and is trading relatively flat over the 24 hour period.