Bitcoin skyrockets as Elon Musk expresses support
To finish off what has been a wild week for markets in comes Elon Musk sending the price of bitcoin up more than 15 per cent.
The Tesla founder added #bitcoin to his Twitter bio in the early hours of Friday before cryptically tweeting: “In retrospect, it was inevitable.”
Prices in the cryptocurrency leapt from just over $32,000 to $38,000 in under an hour after Musk’s tweet before falling back to $36,497 by 10.30am GMT.
As an avid tweeter, Musk also waded into the Gamestop drama which has rocked global markets this week after an army of Reddit daytraders bought up stock in a war on hedge funds.
“It’s not quite apparent what the material difference between Elon Musk – admittedly the world’s richest man – having Bitcoin in his Twitter bio and not having it there really is,” Neil Wilson, chief markets analyst at Markets.com said.
“It clearly indicates support for the crypto in some form, but I don’t think this particularly comes as a surprise. It does indicate that markets are in a febrile mood and trading around some of the ‘hot’ securities, whether it’s Bitcoin or GME, is risky.”
“Assets that can be moved this easily by social media, whether Twitter or Reddit, are liable for large intra-day moves and subsequently could be too hot to handle for many. It’s getting wild out there.”