Musk brings Tesla and Bitcoin together in 1.5 billion ways. (Source: cnbc.com video)

Odd Trio of Investors Lead to Unprecedented Boost in Cryptocurrency

When you put together Gene Simmons of Kiss, Elon Musk of Elon Musk and Snoop Dogg of rapper and Martha Stewart collaboration fame, what do you get? A major shake-up in financial markets and how they deal with cryptocurrency or more to the point Bitcoin and Dogecoin.

Following weeks of frenzied stock market memes and investments—spurred by social media site Reddit and billionaire Elon Musk—a new token is surging: the joke cryptocurrency Dogecoin.

The cryptocurrency, which was launched in 2013 at the height of the doge meme’s popularity, has surged to a record valuation as celebrities tweeted about it—albeit a mere $0.08 per coin, or slightly less than six pence.

According to Skynews found at new.sky.com, here is what has motivated the three famous names above to back the crypto-coins.

A number of Elon Musk’s recent messages have mentioned the joke token, which had been worth roughly $0.007 on 27 January, meaning its value has risen by more than 1,000% in just a few days.

Gene Simmons of the rock band KISS has also been tweeting about Dogecoin recently, claiming to have purchased “a big position” in the cryptocurrency, while rapper Snoop Dogg tagged Musk with an album image of the rapper’s face occluded by a Shiba Inu.

Although the celebrities appear to have been joking, the perceived investment opportunity could encourage inexperienced investors to lose money.

Financial markets were rocked in January by a battle initiated by ordinary people against those who are usually dubbed market manipulators—hedge funds—first linked to a surge in the share price of GameStop.

It comes as the original cryptocurrency Bitcoin jumped more than 10% to a record high after Tesla said it had invested $1.5bn (£1.09bn) in the cryptocurrency.

Now a Tesla Can Be Purchased with Bitcoin

Steve Kovach with cnbc.com has more details about the purchase.

Tesla also said it will start accepting payments in bitcoin in exchange for its products “subject to applicable laws and initially on a limited basis.” That would make Tesla the first major automaker to do so. The $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin will give Tesla liquidity in the cryptocurrency once it starts accepting it for payments.

The disclosure of the investment, in a regulatory filing, sent Bitcoin up by more than 12% to over $44,000 in Monday trading, 10 days after Musk gave a boost to the electronic currency’s price by adding a “#bitcoin” tag to his Twitter profile page.

Bitcoin prices surged to new highs Monday following Tesla’s announcement, reaching a price of at least $44,200. Tesla shares were up more than 2% Monday morning. In its SEC filing, Tesla warned investors of the volatility of bitcoin’s price.

Musk has gotten into trouble for his market-moving tweets in the past, but it’s unclear how that applies to his tweets about cryptocurrencies. Most notably, the SEC charged Musk with fraud in 2018 for his tweets about taking the company private at $420 per share.

Musk ultimately settled with the SEC and was forced to give up his role as chairman of the company’s board and pay a $20 million fine on top of another $20 million fine for the company itself.

read more at news.sky.com