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Dogecoin loses third of price after Elon Musk calls it a 'hustle' on 'SNL'

Published May 09, 2021 02:08AM ET Updated May 09, 2021 06:00PM ET
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3/3 © Reuters. Small toy figures are seen on the cryptocurrency representation with Dogecoin logo in the background in this illustration picture taken April 20, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration 2/3
 
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By Alden Bentley and Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Dogecoin lost more than a third of its price on Sunday, after Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) chief and cryptocurrency supporter Elon Musk called it a 'hustle' during his guest-host spot https://twitter.com/cryptoafricaedu/status/1391373668744372225?s=21 on the "Saturday Night Live" comedy sketch TV show.

Dogecoin was quoted as low as $0.416 on crypto exchange Binance https://www.binance.com/en/trade/DOGE_USDT?type=spot, down 36% from levels around $0.65 before the show. It retraced some of that move later on Sunday, and was last trading around $0.569.

The billionaire Tesla Inc chief executive hosted the SNL show at 11:30 p.m. EDT on Saturday (0330 GMT on Sunday).

Cryptocurrency enthusiasts had for days been eager to see what he would say, after his tweets this year turned the once-obscure digital currency, which began as a social media joke, into a speculator's dream.

Asked 'what is dogecoin', Musk replied, "It's the future of currency. It's an unstoppable financial vehicle that’s going to take over the world."

When a show cast member Michael Che countered, "So, it's a hustle?", Musk replied, "Yeah, it's a hustle," and laughed.

Musk is the rare business mogul to have been asked to host the venerable comedy TV show. His appearance on the iconic late night show puts Musk back in the spotlight just as Tesla's stock is losing steam following last year's monster rally.

The unconventional CEO has posted numerous comments about cryptocurrencies on Twitter and criticized regular cash for having negative real interest rates.

"Only a fool wouldn't look elsewhere," he said in February.

His cryptic tweets "Doge" and "Dogecoin is the people's crypto" that month kicked off a rally in dogecoin - created as a parody on the more mainstream bitcoin and ethereum.

On Thursday, Musk tweeted: "Cryptocurrency is promising, but please invest with caution!" with a video clip attached in which he said, "it should be considered speculation at this point."

But he also said, in the video, that cryptocurrency has a "good chance" of becoming what he called "the future currency of the Earth."

Some financial commentators questioned whether it was responsible for Musk to comment on the cryptocurrency, given he has the power to move its price.

"I think he's having a lot of fun ... He can say anything he wants about dogecoin or cryptos fully aware that just him saying something moves the price," said James Angel, associate professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, who specializes in financial markets and cryptocurrency.

"Anyone who wants to play the Elon Musk game should be prepared to lose all their money."

The flood of selling appeared to cause problems for popular retail trading platform Robinhood, which tweeted early on Sunday that due to high trading volume and volatility some customers had experienced "intermittent issues" trading cryptocurrencies.

The company later said the issues had been resolved and that it would contact customers affected by the downtime.

On crypto data tracker CoinGecko.com, dogecoin has jumped more than 800% over the last month and is now the fourth-largest digital currency, with a market capitalization of $73 billion. It hit a record high Thursday above $0.73.

Tesla said in February it bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin and would soon accept it as a form of payment for its electric cars, a large stride toward mainstream acceptance that sent bitcoin soaring to a record high of nearly $62,000.

Tesla shares closed 1.3% higher at $672.37 on Friday.

Some crypto experts said that Sunday's dogecoin selloff was driven by speculation and that Musk had not hurt its long-term prospects.

"Long term fundamentals of doge are intact. This is a buying opportunity," said Jehan Chu, managing partner at Hong Kong blockchain venture capital firm Kenetic Capital.

"It’s a true social currency - that’s its value."

Dogecoin loses third of price after Elon Musk calls it a 'hustle' on 'SNL'
 

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Comments (12)
Chris Sundo
Chris Sundo May 10, 2021 2:46AM ET
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LOL re '..It’s a true social currency - that’s its value..' -- Talk to marijuana millionaires when Canada legalized its pot. That's when pot stocks had social currency too, with stored value. But the social value held for only for so long. -- What is a Social Value? It's just someone's opinion. Let's wait for reality to buy Teslas with ANY bitcoin/Alt-coin. Only Musk would carry such risks of wildly fluctuating prices tied to his flagship company
Si Gi
Si Gi May 10, 2021 12:24AM ET
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"Anyone who wants to play the Elon Musk game should be prepared to lose all their money." Best line. Period.
Chris Sundo
Chris Sundo May 10, 2021 12:24AM ET
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It's the truth. The same truth as when you sign on your broker's fine print: that there's no predicting the future and you must be prepared to lose it all, including the Alt-Coin exchange's CEO cleaning out all his customer's deposits at the peak in December 2018 while he and his founding biz partner mysteriously got lost in India; remember Mr. Gerald Cotton, whose founding business partner was a convicted US felon who specialized in identity theft and Mr. Cotton's wife who refused to aid the investigation into the disappearance of her husband in India with 215Million dollars of Alt-coin? Many ppl had hundreds of K of tax-paid dollars who practically went bust, just like the Turkish Alt-coin exchange owner recently took off with hundreds of millions of customers' deposits: Murphy's Law: If it CAN happen it sooner or later will.
Adam Paine
Adam Paine May 10, 2021 12:00AM ET
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everything is "meme"
Ron Love
Ron Love May 09, 2021 5:42PM ET
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Lmao, that was a joke on a comedy sketch show.
Charles Sims
Charles Sims May 09, 2021 5:18PM ET
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This is an investing site, do not pretend to be so stu.pid to think price dumped because of him saying that. The price dumped as soon as SNL started. The price pumped in anticipation of this. DOGE has absolutely no utility or value. This was classic buy the rumor, sell the news. There is a reason that DOGE is being marketed by billionaire early investors to retails new to the market, while people familiar with the market are avoiding.
Barani Krishnan
Barani Krishnan May 09, 2021 5:18PM ET
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This is a Reuters story; we @ Investing didn't write this. Surely you're smarter than what you appear to be, not to notice that.
CHAD TENDIES
CHAD TENDIES May 09, 2021 4:20PM ET
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Enron Musk at it again
Raimbek Suleimenov
Raimbek Suleimenov May 09, 2021 1:58PM ET
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If u check the vollume of trade, u can see that the selling point from 0.73 to 0.41 had a small volume, that means that the shark made the price cheaper, and at the lowest we can see a huge rebuy, at 0.41 which could be the same shark who is scalping the market of dogecoin, it will reach a dollar at least
John Doe
ForexInsiders May 09, 2021 11:54AM ET
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Interestingly enough, the $22 billion doge whale hasn't let go of their coins. So, a buying opportunity might be right.
danny Levine
danny Levine May 09, 2021 11:01AM ET
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Elon is such a fraud
perplexed76 .
perplexed76 . May 09, 2021 4:41AM ET
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buy immidiately, tomorrow crypto gamblers will "understand" that hustle actually a good definition.
 
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