How Bitcoin, Dogecoin dance to the tune of Elon Musk’s tweets

For months, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s tweets  have decided the valuation of cryptocurrencies. On Friday, Bitcoin plunged to its lowest in over two months, meanwhile, Dogecoin leaped by a fifth after tweets by the Tesla boss. 

In February, after Elon Musk bought Bitcoins worth $1.5 billion and Tesla’s announcement that it will accept payments in Bitcoins, the price of the cryptocurrency skyrocketed past $50,000 for the first time.  However, the price of Bitcoin plunged as much as 15%,  to a two-and-a-half-month low on Thursday, a reversal from late March, after the SpaceX CEO said that Tesla has stopped accepting payments in Bitcoin due to environmental concerns. Elon Musk said Bitcoin consumes “insane” energy and they are concerned about carbon emissions from bitcoin mining.

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On the other hand, Dogecoin’s price plummeted about a third since last Friday after Elon Musk called the cryptocurrency a  “hustle” on Saturday Night Live. But after Musk said that he is working to improve Dogecoin’s efficiency, the price of the crypto jumped 20%. Dogecoin’s price went up to $0.52 from $0.43 on Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange, after Elon Musk’s tweet.  

Musk, who has given himself the title of “father of the dogecoin”, has the reputation of being the face of the once-obscure digital currency. 

While Bitcoin consumes 707 kilowatt hours of electricity, according to data center provider TRG. Dogecoin uses 0.12. 

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“Doge” and “Dogecoin is the people’s crypto”, Elon Musk said in another tweet. He has also said that Dogecoin is “the future of currency.” 

Amid series of tweets by Elon Musk, the price of Dogecoin jumped over 800% in the last month, according to CoinGecko.com and is now the fourth-largest digital currency, with a market capitalisation of $73 billion.