Dogecoin Strikes Major Gains As Elon Musk Gives A Shout-Out To Meme Coin And Takes Digs At Bitcoin

Dogecoin DOGE/USD is striking significant gains late Thursday after Tesla Inc. TSLA CEO Elon Musk expressed his latest support for the meme cryptocurrency and took a dig at apex cryptocurrency Bitcoin BTC/USD.

What Happened: Musk responded in affirmative to a call from Dogecoin co-creator Billy Markus for the Dogecoin community to keep the Shiba Inu-themed coin “fun and absurd.”

 

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 25, 2021

See Also: How To Buy Dogecoin (DOGE)

Musk also took a dig at Twitter Inc TWTR and Square Inc. SQ CEO Jack Dorsey, a Bitcoin supporter, asking if his "B Word" Bitcoin education initiative stood for “Bicurious.”

Oh right … Bitcoin haha

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 25, 2021

The Tesla CEO then posted the classic "lightbulb" joke aimed at Bitcoin maximalists, a vocal group of supporters that back the apex cryptocurrency above all other cryptocurrencies.

How many Bitcoin maxis does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 25, 2021

See Also: Are These 2 Cryptos Making A Bullish Reversal?

Why It Matters: Musk has been a major catalyst for Dogecoin’s rise to prominence this year. However, the price of the Shuba Inu-themed cryptocurrency has fallen recently amid a broader rout in the cryptocurrency market recently

Musk said in May that he was working With Dogecoin developers to improve system transaction efficiency'. He had also asked his social media following for help with improvements to DOGE and asked them to submit their ideas on GitHub and Reddit.

Musk said in June that Tesla would only get back to accepting Bitcoin when there’s “a clear confirmation of reasonable (~50%) clean energy usage.”

Price Action: Dogecoin is trading 24.5% higher during the last 24 hours at $0.2837 at press time on Thursday. Bitcoin traded 7.3% higher at $35,034.77 over 24 hours at press time.

Read Next: Elon Musk's Development Efforts Could Give Dogecoin A 'Value Floor,' Hopes Cardano Founder