Elon Musk's 'Fav Cryptocurrency' Is A Joke But Its 2020 Returns Are No Laughing Matter

Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency is not Bitcoin (BTC) but a meme-based cousin, which has a Shiba-Inu as its mascot. 

The Favorite Coin: Dogecoin, which was declared as a “joke cryptocurrency” by its creator Jackson Palmer is in fact Musk’s favorite altcoin. Musk affirmed the fact last year in a tweet.

“Dogecoin might be my fav cryptocurrency. It’s pretty cool,” said Musk — after winning a joke poll to be the CEO of Dogecoin. He beat the likes of Ethereum (ETH) founder Vitalik Buterin and Litecoin (LTC) creator Charles Lee.

@elonmusk You can't decline! pic.twitter.com/5F0RAncfBo

— Dominik Heats (@dominikheats) April 2, 2019

Dogs Rock: Musk, who often tweets about a myriad of topics, has freely expressed his thoughts on canines and the cryptocurrency inspired by them. 

Dogs rock pic.twitter.com/vLJGyZo5Sx

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 3, 2020

According to Musk, “[Dogs] have the best coin.”

Only Sell Doge: Musk, whose name is often used by a myriad of cryptocurrency scammers, said jokingly in July this year “Excuse me, I only sell Doge!” in response to a demand for Bitcoin. 

Musk’s comments were made in the same month when a Tik Tok campaign designed to send the meme-based cryptocurrency’s value spiraling managed to shoot DOGE price up by 50% in a 24-hour period. 

Musk may have a valid reason not to give away Bitcoin — since he only holds 0.25 bitcoins — a disclosure he made this year in response to the Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, who professed her ignorance on matters related to the cryptocurrency.

Doge To The Rescue: Musk’s love for Dogecoin extends back years. In 2018, he asked Palmer for help in dealing with “scam spammers.” Palmer then responded and offered to provide a script to Musk that would help with the problem, reported Cointelegraph.

The script aside, scammers are still impersonating Musk. Last month an hijacked Twitter account pretended to be Musk and replied to a tweet published by Game of Thrones actress Maisie Williams who had asked for advice on Bitcoin investment from her followers. The hacked account was trying to lure viewers to a website and presumably scam them.

Doge Vs. Tesla: So how has Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency fared heading into the last month of 2020? Dogecoin (DOGE) has gained 64.51% on a year-to-date basis, not bad for a joke. Tesla has shot up 579.87% in the same period, emerging as the top dog among the pair.

For further context, Alphabet Inc GOOGL GOOG Class A shares are up 36.3% this year and Apple Inc AAPL shares have added 67.6% YTD.

As for Bitcoin, that’s up 164.73% on a YTD basis, with the recent rally.

Photo by Dogeloverforever on Wikimedia