Elon Musk Tweets Pic of Pet Shiba Inu ‘Floki’, Prompting Dogecoin, Spinoff Cryptocurrencies to Surge
© AP Photo / Britta Pedersen
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Tesla’s Elon Musk triggered a 10 percent price rise in an altcoin called Shiba inu in June, when the billionaire entrepreneur went on Twitter to announce that his new pet puppy of the afore-mentioned breed would be named “Floki”.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s new Twitter post briefly sent the price of his favorite cryptocurrencies into a spin. The centibillionaire took to Twitter early on September 13 to share a picture of his new puppy, a Shiba Inu, with the caption 'Floki has arrived'.
Floki has arrived pic.twitter.com/2MiUKb91FT
— Name (@elonmusk) September 12, 2021
The Shiba Inu breed is the mascot of Musk’s favourite crypto currency Dogecoin. Following Musk’s tweet, Dogecoin recorded a +0.36 percent change in 24 hours, with the rise in value coinciding with the same time Musk posted the tweet. Baby Doge Coin, a spinoff of Dogecoin, also recorded a +1.80 percent surge, according to CoinMarketCap.
This June the eccentric billionaire went on Twitter to reveal that his new Shiba Inu puppy would be named “Floki”.
My Shiba Inu will be named Floki
— Name (@elonmusk) June 25, 2021
Stockhead reported at the time that the seven-word tweet from Musk on June 25 had inspired the Floki Inu token to soar from 0.0015c to as much as 0.0038c in minutes.
Motorists drive past Tesla's primary vehicle factory after CEO Elon Musk announced he was defying local officials' restrictions against the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) by reopening the plant in Fremont, California, U.S. May 12, 2020
© REUTERS / STEPHEN LAM
Musk is a huge fan of Dogecoin, the cryptocurrency that features the face of the Shiba Inu dog from the "Doge" meme as its logo and namesake.
We need the real thing now please recreate pic.twitter.com/63lDtbgj3M
— Baby Doge Coin (@BabyDogeCoin) September 13, 2021
The cryptocurrency was launched as a joke by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer in 2013 to mock the growth of altcoins and the cryptocurrency world, and quickly developed its own online community. Elon Musk frequently mentions or talks about Dogecoin on his Twitter account. Earlier this year, he said on Clubhouse, an audio-only app:
"Arguably the most entertaining outcome, the most ironic outcome, would be that Dogecoin becomes the currency of Earth of the future."
The self-described “Dogecoin father” has previously said that his social media posts about meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin are "just meant to be jokes". However, in December last year, Dogecoin's price spiked by around 20 percent after Musk said in a tweet: "One word: Doge."
One word: Doge
— Name (@elonmusk) December 20, 2020
In February he fired off a tweet with just one word: "Literally".
Literally pic.twitter.com/XBAUqiVsPH
— Name (@elonmusk) February 24, 2021
In June 2021 he went on Twitter to repost a dogecoin image he first shared in July last year adding the word "inevitable."
— Name (@elonmusk) June 1, 2021
