ReutersJan 30, 2021 00:15:40 AM
By Tom Wilson and Thyagaraju Adinarayan
LONDON (Reuters) – A “#bitcoin” tag on Elon Musk’s Twitter profile page caused the cryptocurrency to surge 14% on Friday. This was the latest in a series of market moves triggered by comments on his social media account.
The world’s richest person’s twitter handle has joined the growing list of things to consider when trading stocks for personal or professional purposes, and is amid the rising popularity of the Reddit WallStreetBets chat room that is too led to rapid profits for GameStop stocks.
This forum also caught Musk’s attention when he wrote “Gamestonk !!” tweeted. on Tuesday along with a link to the Reddit stock trading discussion group behind the year-to-date rally of over 2,500% in the video game dealer.
“Stonks” is an ironic term for stocks that are widely used on social media. His supporters on the Reddit forum affectionately refer to him as “Papa Musk”.
His tweets rightly drove other stocks up too.
Shares in fast-growing Polish game developer CD Projekt rose 16% on Thursday after Musk tweeted, “The aesthetics of cyberpunk are incredible, by the way …”. Cyberpunk is the company’s flagship.
Similarly, shares of online retail platform Etsy rose 9% on Tuesday after Musk tweeted, “I kind of love Etsy.” He said he bought a “hand-knitted wool Marvin Mars oar” for his dog.
Shares in his own company, Tesla, fell 1.2% this week after rising nearly 700% last year.
BITCOIN RALLY
Bitcoin, which drove on Musk’s day, rose 150.2 GMT on Friday, up 10.2% to $ 36,901.
The cryptocurrency surged over 300% over the past year as larger U.S. investors and companies sought exposure to it, hitting an all-time high of $ 42,000 last month.
In December, in a Twitter exchange with a prominent digital currency advocate, Musk asked about the possibility of converting “large transactions” on Tesla’s balance sheet into Bitcoin.
“That would be a very big deal,” said Christopher Bendiksen from digital asset manager CoinShares on Friday.
Traders also cited positive comments on Bitcoin from hedge fund manager Ray Dalio as supportive sentiment.
The founder of Bridgewater Associates wrote Thursday that the cryptocurrency was “a hell of a good invention,” adding that he considers it a “gold-like alternative good”.
Smaller cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum and XRP, which tended to move alongside Bitcoin, also rose 5% and 8%, respectively.
Bitcoin rally 2020 with bubbles https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/buzz/yxmvjyxmkpr/Pasted%20image%201611933299668.png
(Reporting by Tom Wilson and Thyagaraju Adinarayan. Editing by Rachel Armstrong, Mark Potter, Kirsten Donovan)
This story was not edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by automatic feed.
