Once again, a spike in Dogecoin can be attributed to none other than Elon Musk.
Just after midnight on Monday morning, in a Twitter thread about inflation, the Tesla CEO tweeted that he would not be selling his crypto holdings, which includes unknown quantities of Dogecoin, Bitcoin, and Ether. Minutes later, Dogecoin reached its highest price in the last five days, $0.119.
Musk announced the move in a reply to Michael Saylor, the CEO of MicroStrategy, who commented on a different Twitter thread Musk wrote asking his audience for their thoughts about the inflation rate over the next few years. While Saylor said inflation would cause more people to buy Bitcoin, Musk replied that it’s better to own assets like a home or stocks to hedge against inflation.
“As a general principle, for those looking for advice from this thread, it is generally better to own physical things like a home or stock in companies you think make good products, than dollars when inflation is high,” Musk wrote. “I still own & won’t sell my Bitcoin, Ethereum or Doge fwiw,” he wrote.
Since last Wednesday, Dogecoin has been trending downward, reaching a seven-day low of $0.1107 the day before Musk’s tweet, according to CoinMarketCap. In the span of two hours early Monday morning, though, Dogecoin’s price jumped about 7% to a five-day high of $0.119 before dropping 4% and stabilizing around $0.1142. As of Monday morning, Dogecoin is still down 27% from its 30-day high of $0.1574 reached on Feb. 13.
Whiplash in cryptocurrencies, and especially Dogecoin prices, is nothing new. The cryptocurrency often jumps based on any sort of mention by Musk, its self-proclaimed “Dogefather.” A recent study by the Network Contagion Research Institute, a nonprofit that studies the spread of misinformation and deception on social media, said Dogecoin is especially susceptible to rumors on Reddit and other social media sites.
The other two cryptocurrencies mentioned in Musk’s tweet also briefly increased early Monday morning before retreating, though not nearly as much as Dogecoin. Bitcoin jumped 1.6% and Ether rose 2.2% just after midnight when Musk’s tweet was posted.
Crypto prices have generally been falling in the past week after being thrust into the spotlight following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As of Monday, the two most popular cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Ether, were still down from their 30-day highs by double digits. Bitcoin was down about 13% from its 30-day high of $45,077, and Ether was down about 19% from its high of $3,185.