Bitcoin surged as much as 20 percent on Friday following Elon Musk’s addition of the hashtag #bitcoin to his Twitter bio.
Industry site CoinDesk clocked the currency’s value at $37,299 at around 3:30 a.m. ET, an increase of $5,000 in the span of an hour. The rise came after Musk added a hashtag for Bitcoin and sent out a tweet that read: “In retrospect, it was inevitable.”
The Tesla CEO’s addition of Bitcoin to his Twitter profile came on the heels of speculation about whether he would buy bitcoins or add it to Tesla’s balance sheet. In addition to sending the coin’s value up, Musk’s mention of Bitcoin led to a spike in online searches for the cryptocurrency.
Support for Bitcoin
In a December Twitter exchange, Musk asked about the possibility of converting “large transactions” of Tesla’s balance sheet into bitcoins. However, he hasn’t offered more than vague hints that he’s a supporter of the world’s largest cryptocurrency.
“While the bitcoin community is keen for Musk to come out as a supporter, he seemingly enjoys dropping crypto mentions as something of a tease,” CoinDesk wrote.
The digital coin has been on a rollercoaster ride lately, hitting a record high of $41,940 earlier this month before plunging to below $30,000 last week. Bitcoin’s value more than quadrupled over the course of 2020, partly due to the belief that cryptocurrency holds a value similar to gold during times of economic turbulence.