Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin prices spike briefly after Elon Musk tweets he won’t sell them

Elon Musk said he will not be selling the cryptocurrencies he owns.

A tweet by billionaire Elon Musk led to a brief spike in the value of cryptocurrencies his Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin after he said he will not sell the digital tokens he owns.

The Tesla and SpaceX chief had put out a tweet seeking responses to probable inflation rate over the next few years. In the same thread, he tweeted, “As a general principle, for those looking for advice from this thread, it is generally better to own physical things like a home or stock in companies you think make good products, than dollars when inflation is high. I still own and won’t sell my Bitcoin, Ethereum or Doge fwiw (for what it’s worth).”

While Bitcoin was trading at $37,725 at 5:44 am India time, soon after Musk’s tweet, it went up to $38,826 at 9:49 am India time. Ethereum was trading at $2,503 at 4:34 am and it went up to $2,595 at 9:49 am.

Dogecoin rose to $0.119 at 9:49 am from $0.1107 at 4:34 am.

Elon Musk is known for influencing the value of cryptocurrency through his remarks on social media. His tweets on Dogecoin in the past, including the one where he called it the “people’s crypto”, have helped the meme coin soar 5,859 per cent over 2021, according to data from Coinbase website.

Musk, who was named as Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2021, had in October last year, reiterated his holdings which are limited to Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin. He closely watches the cryptocurrency space and tweets his observations regularly.

On January 14, the value of Dogecoin saw a massive jump after he said that Tesla Inc merchandise can be bought using the Dogecoin.

In an interview with TIME magazine, Musk said when it comes to transactions per day, Dogecoin is a better currency.

“The transaction value of Bitcoin is low and the cost per transaction is high. At least at a space level, it is suitable as a store of value. But fundamentally, Bitcoin is not a good substitute for transactional currency,” Elon Musk told the magazine.

“Even though it was created as a silly joke, Dogecoin is better suited for transactions. The total transaction flow that you do with Dogecoin is… transactions per day has much higher potential than Bitcoin.”

The entrepreneur, who overtook Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in 2021 to become the world’s wealthiest person, said while Dogecoin could be inflationary, at least it is a fixed number as opposed to Bitcoin. “And that’s actually good because it encourages people to spend, rather than sort of hoard as a store of value,” he said.to Bitcoin.

“And that’s actually good because it encourages people to spend, rather than sort of hoard as a store of value,” he said.