Elon Musk called Bitcoin “bs” in a series of bizarre weekend tweets that also sent a rising cryptocurrency price soaring.
The world’s richest man seemed to question the authenticity of all cryptocurrencies during an early morning rant before later getting distracted with the idea of converting the cash on Tesla’s balance sheet into digital currency, which has been on tear.
“Bitcoin is almost as bs as fiat money,” he wrote at 4:24 am New York time, referring to a term for government-issued currency that is not supported by a physical commodity like gold.
The US dollar and other large currencies worldwide are considered fiat currencies. Musk has argued with governments printing large sums of money before – he said in May that “the announcement of huge money by govt central banks made Bitcoin Internet [ghost] money looks solid in comparison. ”
At the same time, Musk produced a bit of a buzz around Dogecoin, which is named for a famous internet meme featuring dog shiba inu. The alternative cryptocurrency was launched in 2013 and has a market value of about $ 622 million, a tiny fraction of Bitcoin’s $ 423 billion.
“One word: Doge,” Musk tweets. She also changed her bio on the website to say “Former CEO of Dogecoin.”
Dogecoin’s price rose as much as 20 percent to its highest price since early July after Musk’s tweet, according to cryptocurrency news website Coindesk. The coins were trading up about 9 percent at 2:01 pm on Monday but were still worth less than a penny at around $ 0.0049.
A few hours later, Tesla’s CEO threw in the idea of converting the cash on Tesla’s balance sheet into cryptocurrency in an exchange with Michael Saylor, a big Bitcoin supporter who is also the CEO of business intelligence company MicroStrategy.
Saylor – whose company bought more than $ 1 billion worth of Bitcoin this year – tweeted that Musk should “do a $ 100 billion favor to your shareholders” and convert Tesla’s balance sheet of dollars into digital currency.
“Other companies on the S&P 500 would follow your lead and eventually grow into a $ 1 trillion favor,” Saylor wrote on Sunday in response to risqué meme Musk posted suggesting that Bitcoin is a female seductress trying to tempt persecuted men.
That prompted Musk to ask, “Are such large transactions even possible?” Saylor replied that they were, but Musk did not inquire further on Twitter.
Musk’s tweetstorm comes in the middle of a light-hearted rally for Bitcoin that sent it above the $ 20,000 mark for the first time last week.
The tech billionaire’s cryptic tweets make it hard to sift through his actual views on cryptocurrency, but one offers a hint. When a follower speculated that the price of Bitcoin will crash but also reach $ 50,000 in the next five years, Musk replied, “Sounds fine.”
“Bitcoin is my safe word,” joking in the early morning rant before following up about 20 minutes later by adding, “Just kidding, who needs a safe word anyway!?”