Bitcoin (BTC), price rose dramatically – by more than $5,000 in just a few minutes- after Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, put the leading cryptocurrency’s symbol on his Twitter bio on Jan. 29.
BTC/USD was expected to rise following this week’s crazy stock trading in the US stock markets, but Elon’s unprecedented actions had an even greater knock-on effect.
The immediate market response pushed BTC to $38,000 before declining slightly shortly afterwards. At the time of writing, it was trading above $37,200, a 16% increase over the past 24 hours.
Market data gathered from Tradingview sheds light on how users quickly reacted, assuming that Musk was publicly advertising Bitcoin, contributing to the price rise to $38,000.
Based on this week’s events, investors must have been happy to see BTC get that online push other assets are receiving. They saw it as a direct endorsement of Bitcoin by the Tesla and SpaceX CEO.
There was also anticipation that bitcoin would get more support online, especially, from the Reddit group r/Wallstreetbets, responsible for the recent pumps of US company stocks like GameSpot ($GME) and AMC.
This is not the first time that Elon Musk has pumped the price of some cryptoassets In the past he caused a price surge for Dogecoin (DOGE), a meme-based token, with some random tweets.
Cryptocurrencies still reign supreme as their reputation of being independent investments is on an upward streak. As $GME trading was put to a halt, Documenting Bitcoin – a popular crypto Twitter account – advised the public to use this as their wake up call to get their BTC off exchanges with this tweet.
This should be your wake up call to get your #Bitcoin off exchanges.
— Documenting ₿itcoin 📄 (@DocumentingBTC) January 28, 2021
In the past, Musk had pulled a similar move on Twitter by having “former Dogecoin CEO” in his bio. Same as last time, he has not put out any explanation concerning the move towards BTC, and no public announcement had been made at that the time of this writing. The only clue is a cryptic tweet Musk posted claiming, “In retrospect, it was inevitable.”
This has been left out to interpretation, but it has not prevented the excited crypto community from connecting the two posts with even one miner permanently putting the statement on the bitcoin blockchain.
When it comes to Musk and Bitcoin, the two have some interesting history. Previous tweets from the world’s richest man left his followers wondering if he owned or even liked BTC, but his positive impact on its price rise is not up for debate.
As of Friday, Jan. 29th, BTC/USD was on its way to match and possibly surpass the pace $GME and others had leapt with. Reversing at $37,000 to trade lower than other assets from this week means that BTC’s possibilities are endless, especially considering that it still falls within an established corridor.
When Bitcoin proponents noticed Musk’s Tweet, support messages started flowing in. The author of Thank God for Bitcoin, Robert Breedlove responded by saying, “Got em.” Bill Barhydt, while the CEO of Abra, acclaimed “Elon has discovered interplanetary money. Buckle up.”
Image courtesy of Wikimedia
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