Dogecoin price soars more than 100% to new record after Elon Musk tweets

For the second time this week, Dogecoin has hit a milestone. And this time around, it may be thanks to the world’s richest man.

The virtual currency, which features the face of a Shiba Inu dog as its logo, soared more than 100% to hit an all-time high of $0.298 Friday morning, according to cryptocurrency news and data provider Coindesk. This comes just two days after it had surpassed ten cents in value for the first time as investors geared up for the direct listing of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global.

The latest boost comes after Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Dogecoin’s most important fan, said “Doge Barking at the moon” in a tweet. He also shared a photo of a painting by Spanish artist Joan Miró, which is titled “Dog Barking at the Moon.”

This isn’t the first time Musk’s tweets have raised the value of Dogecoin, which started as an internet parody more than seven years ago. In February, a series of tweets by the tech billionaire — who has more than 50 million followers on Twitter — had sent the bitcoin rival up more than 50% in trading.

“Dogecoin is the people’s crypto,” he tweeted at the time.

Musk had previously been critical of the more established bitcoin, once calling it “BS” in a tweet. But in a February interview on social app Clubhouse, Musk said he should have bought that digital currency eight years ago. His company Tesla is also allowing customers to buy cars with bitcoin.

Dogecoin has also enjoyed something of a cult status on internet message board Reddit, where a popular group — not unlike the WallStreetBets group behind GameStop’s rally — decided earlier this year to propel its value “to the moon.” Dogecoin soared over 600% in the wake of that push.

At the time of publishing, the currency was trading at $0.26 and had reached a total market value of $32 billion. Even though it started as a joke cryptocurrency in 2013 — inspired by an Internet meme in which “doge” became another term for “dog” — it has soared more than 5,000% since the start of the year.