Whenever the Dogefather leads, the pack follows.
As billionaire Elon Musk gets serious about buying Twitter, the price of Dogecoin, the crypto he often promotes on social media, is up nearly 14%. From a low of about 12 cents, the cryptocurrency’s price spiked Monday morning, reaching a price of about 14 cents at around 9 a.m. Monday before retreating slightly, according to CoinMarketCap.
The cryptocurrency was trading at almost 14 cents, up 12.18% Monday afternoon.
The price increases comes as Twitter is reportedly getting ready to accept Musk’s proposal to buy the social media company for $43 billion, according to Reuters. A deal could be finalized and announced as soon as Monday, according to Reuters, although negotiations could still fall through.
In a series of tweets on April 9, Musk, who bought a 9.2% stake in Twitter earlier this month, proposed changes to Twitter’s subscription service Twitter Blue, saying it could possibly be incorporating Dogecoin as a payment option for the service.
After rejecting a Twitter board seat earlier this month, Musk made it clear he wanted to buy Twitter on April 14. Before Musk secured funding, the board was expected to reject his proposal and launched a poison pill defense on April 15, a move that is designed to discourage hostile takeovers.
Musk has been a huge proponent of Dogecoin, going so far as to call himself the “Dogefather” in a tweet last April. Price swings for the coin often go hand-in-hand with Musk tweets or actions. When he tweeted last December that Tesla would be accepting Dogecoin as payment for branded merchandise, its price increased 33% from about 16 cents to 21 cents, according to CoinGecko.
The meme cryptocurrency was originally created as a joke in 2013, but it has risen to become the 11th-biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, according to CoinMarketCap. The cryptocurrency’s value often fluctuates along with the promotions from celebrities like Musk, rapper Snoop Dogg, and Gene Simmons of the rock band Kiss. The cryptocurrency has no limit to the number of coins that can exist, meaning as more coins are created its price should theoretically decrease. Billionaire entrepreneur and investor Mark Cuban has said the cryptocurrency has no intrinsic value.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
