Dogecoin soars over 40% immediately after Elon Musk tweet

Dogecoin soared more than 40% to a price of 55 cents on Friday according to Coin Metrics data, immediately after Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted about the cryptocurrency.

Musk tweeted that he was working with dogecoin developers to improve the efficiency of transactions.

“Working with Doge devs to improve system transaction efficiency,” Musk tweeted. “Potentially promising.”

At the same time, crypto exchange platform Coinbase said it would list the meme-inspired cryptocurrency, which also encouraged investors.

The meme-inspired crypto is still down about 18% from a record high of nearly 67 cents only a week ago.

The tweet from Musk comes after he said on Wednesday that his electric vehicle company would no longer accept bitcoin as payment due to environmental concerns regarding the cryptocurrency’s mining. The announcement caused a mass sell-off in cryptocurrencies including Dogecoin.

Dogecoin, which was largely conceived as a joke, has seen a stunning increase in value, especially since Musk adopted it as a meme and began tweeting about it earlier in 2020, including strong gains last week before the billionaire’s appearance on “Saturday Night Live” as a guest-host.

Earlier in the same week, Musk also posted a poll on Twitter asking if Tesla should accept dogecoin as payment. About 80% of the nearly 4m votes cast said "yes".