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Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been an outspoken proponent of cryptocurrencies.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
Dogecoin
is riding Muskmania.
The cryptocurrency most associated with
Tesla
(ticker: TSLA) CEO Elon Musk was flying on Monday, with dogecoin rising 6% as
ether,
and the rest of the digital asset space notched losses.
Holders of the coin may want to thank Musk’s ambitions to buy
Twitter
(TWTR).
Musk met with Twitter leadership over the weekend to discuss his proposal to buy the company for $54.20 per share, and progress has been made to the point where a deal could be completed Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Barron’s was told by a person familiar with the matter that a deal could be announced Monday.
Dogecoin has long been a favorite token of Musk, who has been an outspoken proponent of digital assets; he said last month that he wouldn’t sell his dogecoin, and would also continue to hold
bitcoin
and
The rise of dogecoin, which is a so-called memecoin — called that because it is mostly based on an internet joke rather than a significant blockchain project — has risen to be the 10th-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization fueled by Musk.
Earlier this year, Tesla began accepting dogecoin for merchandise purchases on its website. Dogecoin holders could be hoping that a Twitter under Musk’s leadership could see more of the same — a use case for the token. Late last year Twitter unveiled a tipping function, allowing users to send creators Bitcoin.
Marcus Sotiriou, an analyst at digital asset broker GlobalBlock, said that the Twitter deal news “has led to speculators buying dogecoin due to Elon’s obsession with the cryptocurrency, and hence the potential for dogecoin to be given more utility on one of the biggest social media networks if Elon is successful.”
Write to Jack Denton at jack.denton@dowjones.com
