NEW YORK CITY, N.Y. — The cryptocurrency dogecoin is up again after Tesla founder Elon Musk tweeted about the company.
On Feb. 4, Musk sent out a number of tweets about the cryptocurrency, according to Yahoo Finance writer, Oscar Williams-Grut.
The most popular of these tweets was a Lion King meme of himself holding up the dogecoin dog - a Shiba Inu - as if it were Simba.
Shortly after, the price of the cryptocurrency rocketed. Dogecoin was up 45% against the dollar to $0.0484, according to Williams-Grut.
Williams-Grut quoted Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at Markets.com: “Anything Musk tweets about shoots higher because he has such a strong following both on social media and as a businessman."
“People will literally invest in him and his ideas, and don’t care what the fundamentals are," he said.
This isn't the first time Musk has tweeted about dogecoin, though. Just last week, he tweeted another meme that seemed to reference the cryptocurrency.
Earlier this week, Musk spoke about dogecoin on the social media app, Clubhouse, Williams-Grut notes. He told his followers that these tweets are "just meant to be jokes."
“Arguably the most entertaining outcome and the most ironic outcome would be dogecoin becomes the currency of earth in the future,” Musk said, according to Newsweek.
As previously noted by FOX43, dogecoin was created mostly as a joke. It's based of a popular meme from the early part of the last decade. The meme typically features a Shiba Inu dog with nonsensical words and phrases around its head.
The cryptocurrency joined companies like GameStop and AMC last week in soaring far behind its market valuation. The internet thinks it has potential, and thus the markets are responding.