Price of obscure cryptocurrency surges after Elon Musk names his dog after it

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk was a cause of a spike in the cryptocurrency space again after naming his dog after an obscure coin.

On Monday, the Floki Inu currency reached an all-time high when the technology mogul tweeted a photo of his Shiba Inu puppy with the phrase “Floki has arrived.”

Other alternative coins with similar names, such as Floki Shiba and Super Floki, experienced a 150 per cent price increase.

Despite the significant price increases, none of them are among the top 2,000 most valuable cryptocurrencies, according to the CoinMarketCap price index.

It’s not the first time that throwaway actions by the entrepreneur have had knock-on effects on the crypto exchanges. Musk has also helped propel Dogecoin to new record highs during his performance on Saturday Night Live earlier this year.

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The world’s most famous meme-based money was founded in 2013 as a parody of bitcoin’s expanding cryptocurrency industry.

It was inspired by the Shiba Inu Doge meme and quickly acquired popularity as a result of the fun-loving and altruistic community that grew around it.

Musk, a self-described ‘meme connoisseur’, took interest in the phenomenon and even purchased some for his infant son X A-Xii so that he might be a “toddler hodler.”

He’s also speculated that cryptocurrency could become the internet’s native currency and the native currency of planet Mars if a human colony sets up shop there.

Speaking to Clubhouse in a Q&A session at the beginning of the year, Musk spoke on the Dogecoin market’s controversial aspects and said that he will, on rare occasions, poke fun at the crypto, but it’s just “meant to be jokes.”

“But fate loves irony... The most entertaining outcome is often the most likely and arguably the most entertaining outcome, and [the] most ironic outcome would be that Dogecoin becomes the currency of Earth in the future.”

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Musk is the world’s second wealthiest person, with a net worth of approximately $200 billion.

Outside of shares in SpaceX, Tesla, and his other businesses, the only other assets he claims to have are Dogecoin, Ethereum (ether), and bitcoin.

It’s safe to say that Musk has quite the influence on all things crypto.