Cryptocurrency Dogecoin surged more than 50% on Thursday after billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk tweeted his support for it.
The tweet comes just two days after Musk said he was taking a break from Twitter ‘for a while’.
Dogecoin jumped to $0.05798 according to data on cryptocurrency website Coindesk.
Musk first tweeted ‘Doge’ and immediately followed up with ‘Dogecoin is the people’s crypto’.
The Tesla chief’s tweets about certain companies and cryptocurrencies have sent their prices soaring in recent weeks.
Shares in GameStop, Etsy and CD Projekt have jumped following comments on his Twitter account about them.
When Musk put a ‘#bitcoin’ tag on his Twitter bio last Friday, it sent the most popular cryptocurrency flying.
He has since taken the tag off.
Meanwhile, rival cryptocurrency Ethereum is also on a record setting spree as investors buy it before the launch of Ethereum futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange next week.
Ethereum rose to record high of $1,698.56 before giving up some of those gains to trade 2.7% lower in early london trading. Bitcoin, the most popular crypto currency, also fell 1.2% to $37,184.
Cryptocurrencies are gaining traction with more mainstream investors.
The euphoria boosted the total market value of all cryptocurrencies above $1 trillion for the first time earlier in January – more than PayPal, Visa and Mastercard combined.
The joke cryptocurrency Dogecoin was created in 2013 as a light-hearted take on bitcoin.
But in the wake of Reddit retail investors taking on established Wall Street types, the cryptocurrency is rallying.
The aim of the Reddit push is to try and increase the value of the joke crypto to $1 per coin.
The Shiba inu dog that is the face of dogecoin rose to fame after a meme of the breed went viral. Meanwhile, the crypto lists its creators as Mr Palmer and Shibetoshi Nakamoto – a play on the mysterious creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto.
On its website, Dogecoin states: ‘Dogecoin is an open source peer-to-peer digital currency, favoured by Shiba Inus worldwide.’
