Dogecoin has jumped 13% over the past 24 hours on Tuesday to around $0.068, after Elon Musk reiterated his support for the meme coin, even though the crypto has lost more than 90% of its value from its all-time high in May 2021.
Musk, chief executive at both Tesla TSLA, +11.35% and SpaceX, said Tuesday that SpaceX will accept Dogecoin DOGEUSD, +12.98% for some merchandise, after Tesla made a similar move in January.
In an interview with Bloomberg Editor-In-Chief John Micklethwait at the Qatar Economic Forum, Musk said he bought some dogecoin and intended to personally support the cryptocurrency because “I just know a lot of people who are not that wealthy who, you know, have encouraged me to buy and support Dogecoin.”
“I’m responding to those people and just people that, when I’ve walked around the factory at SpaceX or Tesla, they’ve asked me to support Dogecoin, so I’m doing so,” Musk said in the interview.
“Tesla accepts Dogecoin for some merchandise and SpaceX will do the same,” Musk said.
Cryptocurrencies have slumped this year as bond yields have risen and stocks have fallen into a bear market. Bitcoin BTCUSD, +5.34% on Saturday fell to as low as $17,601, down 74% from its all-time high in November, before it rebounded to around $21,625 on Tuesday, according to CoinDesk data.
“I have never said that people should invest in crypto,” Musk said in the interview with Bloomberg. “In the case of Tesla, SpaceX, myself — you know, SpaceX and Tesla, for example, all did buy some Bitcoin, but it’s a small percentage of our total cash and near-cash assets. So, you know, not all that significant.”
Musk made the comments after a series of tweets vouching for Dogecoin over the weekend. He tweeted Sunday that “I will keep supporting Dogecoin.” To a comment that wrote “keep buying it then,” Musk replied, “I am.”
On Saturday, as Dogecoin’s co-creator Billy Markus tweeted he hoped that people could actually use the crypto “for something,” Musk replied that “Tesla and SpaceX merch, maybe more down the road.”
Last week a dogecoin investor sued Elon Musk and two of his companies, Tesla Inc. and SpaceX, for $258 billion, accusing them of operating a “pyramid scheme” to inflate the price of the cryptocurrency.