“I’m really excited for my Mother’s Day gift,” deadpanned Maye Musk, mother of billionaire Elon Musk. “I just hope it’s not dogecoin (DOGE).”
“It is,” the Tesla and SpaceX CEO joked.
As reported by Coindesk, Musk, the billionaire trying to ferry people to Mars and build electric cars for Earth, hosted NBC’s Saturday Night Live program on, uh, Saturday night. As expected, the meme cryptocurrency dogecoin came up. During a Weekend Update segment, Musk explained cryptocurrency to the NBC Show’s audience, before hosts Michael Che and Colin Jost repeatedly asked him “what is dogecoin.”
So “it’s a hustle,” Che stated after Musk indicated that dogecoin began as a joke (Musk said it is, and then said it’s going to the moon).
Musk was presented as a cryptocurrency expert called “Lloyd Ostertag.”
In the show’s final sketch, Musk joked about creating a new currency, based on “whatever I say,” before the show explained the fiat monetary system.
At the press time, Doge traded hands at $0.50, falling 22% after the show began at 11:30 p.m. New York time. On a 24-hour basis, it was down roughly 30%.
This year, Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency Musk frequently tweets about, has grown 130-fold in value.
From Sunday to Saturday evening, just before the show began, the DOGE price had risen 73 %, apparently on speculation that the joke token might get a boost from Musk’s appearance on SNL.
The founder of Digital Currency Group (DCG), Barry Silbert, revealed on Saturday that the company believes the price of dogecoin will fall.
Many recent price increases have been attributed to Musk: there is always a sudden rise in price shortly after he tweets about it. Although the cryptocurrency was started as a joke, its rise this year has outstripped much of the broader digital-asset market. For instance, bitcoin has doubled this year, so DOGE has gained some 65 times faster.
As a consequence, the Shiba Inu-represented cryptocurrency already has a market capitalization of more than $80 billion, approximately on par with France’s largest bank, BNP Paribas, despite there still being just a few outlets so far that accept DOGE for payment. Still, acceptance seems to be growing – like the National Basketball Association’s Dallas Mavericks, which accepts the cryptocurrency for merchandise.
This week, Musk also advised his Twitter followers to “invest with caution,” claiming that cryptocurrency might be a fun speculation tool.
“People should not invest their life savings in cryptocurrency, to be clear,” Musk said. “I think that’s unwise.”
Musk also reminded his fans that Dogecoin was created as a joke.
