21/05/2021
Last Wednesday, a Black Friday sale in the Crypto market saw the prices plummet, much to the dismay of all the investors. It all started when the news broke out that Elon Musk was scheduled to host SNL this weekend. Investors were especially keen on watching him mention cryptocurrency after his appraising tweets. And he did not disappoint. His calling Dogecoin a “hustle” caused the coin to fall by over 23%.
Soon after, Elon Musk announced that SpaceX would be launching satellite Doge-1 to the moon, which will be paid for in Dogecoin. Talk about taking the meme coin "to the moon" literally! The coin rallied, making every investor elated, not thinking about the volatility of the coin.
Then came the big shock. Tesla suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin, citing the reason as usage of coal in the BTC mining process. This news was received with a 13% fall in BTC. ETH was soon down by 7%, and other coins followed suit. Uncertainty and unrest soon became synonymous with the market conditions!
The final blow came when China, which hosts more than 75% of the mining, banned financial institutions and payment companies from providing services related to cryptocurrency.
Today, BTC is trading at $41,000, ETH at $2700, Doge at $0.3915, and $1 trillion has been wiped out of the market. The market was struck with panic following Musk’s erratic statements, but China’s ban came as the final nail in the coffin. After that, it has been a freefall for crypto prices.
But now Dogecoin is up by 11% after a Musk tweet containing the word ‘Dogecoin’. This begs the question, can one man hold the power to shake the entire financial market with a single tweet?