Elon Musk held a town hall in Folsom, Pennsylvania on Thursday where he gave a plug to Dogecoin, causing the price of the memecoin to surge 15% in 24 hours.
Speaking to promote Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy, an audience member asked the tech billionaire about an idea he has floated to create a “Department of Government Efficiency.”
“Yeah, D.O.G.E.” Musk replied, leading to the crowd cheering and applauding—and the price of Dogecoin shooting up as word of the remark traversed social media.
The crowd cheered and applauded as Elon smiled. The mere mention of the coin sent it up.
The episode came at a time when Musk is throwing his fortune and influence behind Trump. He recently committed $75 million to help Trump and other Republicans get elected through his America PAC. In September, Trump promised to appoint Musk the head of a new department to oversee and mitigate government spending.
Many crypto enthusiasts are betting that Trump will pursue a more friendly regulatory agenda for crypto, and that prices of Bitcoin and other assets will jump.
Musk has a long history of promoting Dogecoin, which led to a class action lawsuit accusing him of a pump-and-dump scheme to intentionally inflate the coin. That lawsuit was thrown out in August.
The coin’s market cap reached an all-time high of $88 billion in May 2021, after multiple endorsements from Musk including an SNL sketch where he proclaimed himself “dogefather.” In 2023, the coin jumped 30% after Musk briefly changed the twitter logo to a picture of a Shiba Inu, the iconic dog breed associated with the Doge meme.
Dogecoin is the world’s eight largest cryptocurrency and its market capitalization rose to to $20 billion on the Musk announcement. In the past day, it has outpaced Bitcoin, which rose 3%, as well as the broader crypto market.
Dogecoin fell to lows of $0.05 in late 2023 before rebounding to $0.22 in March, as Bitcoin reached an all-time high of $73,000 associated with the approval of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
In June, the memecoin slumped 10% amid concerns about interest rates causing investors to dump Dogecoin and opt for safer assets. Since then, it has held around $0.10.