Elon Musk and the crypto world: the story
Elon Musk had a complicated relationship with cryptocurrencies, and they had undergone many wide turns along its road, just like the cryptocurrency market itself. Let’s go through the whole story, from its very beginning.
Elon Musk, a South African-born USA-based engineer and businessman, held the title of CEO in numerous companies, including SpaceX, Tesla, OpenAI, and more. Every company is known for cutting edge technologies in different areas, from spacecraft to EV construction.
But earlier, in 1998, Elon stood at the foundation of PayPal, which was among the world’s first online payment systems, but definitely ended up the most popular one. By 2020, it had surpassed the mark of 300 million regular users worldwide and changed the way money was transferred online forever.
So all of this legacy Elon (not much willingly at first) inevitably led to the adoption of cryptocurrencies. Blockchain technology, which lies at the core of a crypto, brought online payments ahead of PayPal as well as of its contenders and completely eliminated the urge of having centralized third-party “middleman” CPUs.
Did Elon Musk create Bitcoin?
In late 2014, Elon Musk was giving an interview and got a question about Bitcoin. In response, he described Bitcoin as fascinating, even though it is mainly used for transactions on the dark web. He added that cryptocurrencies eventually will be used for all kinds of financial transactions in the future and that he does not have any of Bitcoin in his possession.
Elon Musk’s opinion was fully justified back then, as the value of Bitcoin has fallen from its current peak of around $1100 in 2014, a trend that lasted for three years until the cryptocurrency experienced an incredible boom in late 2017.
As BTC broke through the $8000 mark and reached a new high of nearly $20000, an article titled “Elon Musk Probably Invented Bitcoin” went out in late 2017. Article’s author was later hired as a software engineer at Tesla and later founded his own company, Spase.io.
Gupta’s evidence for his claim was mostly indirect, like, for instance, Elon’s understanding of economics, his C++ programming skills, and his unique approach to problem-solving. Elon later denied any assumptions, and added that he recently got some BTC Tokens as a gift from a friend.
Elon Musk reconsiders
Things got better in 2019, when the latest and perhaps most exciting phase of Musk’s cryptocurrency journey began, as he started to consider cryptocurrencies more seriously, both in terms of technology and as a potential component of his business models.
In February 2019, Elon Musk called Bitcoin’s overall structure amazing and shared that he has been looking closely at Ethereum, although he does not intend to use it for his green and environmentally-friendly Tesla business due to the blockchain’s enormous energy consumption.
Elon Musk and the DOGE
In April 2019, Musk tweeted about Dogecoin (DOGE) for the first time, calling it his favorite cryptocurrency. In just three days, the coin’s price doubled from $0.002 to $0.004.
Musk frequently mentioned and endorsed DOGE in December 2020 and continues to do so today, each time triggering or contributing to a rapid increase in the cryptocurrency’s value. A tweet with just the word DOGE led to a 120% increase in the price of the coin.
The peak and future of Bitcoin
In February 2020, Tesla announced it would acquire $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin and shared its plans to start accepting payment in cryptocurrency in addition to regular cash for its products. The current highest price for Bitcoin is around $58,000 and was announced on February 21, 2021. The high price is partly due to the influence of Elon Musk and the announcement of Tesla to join the cryptocurrency world.
So, was it Elon Musk’s actions alone that led to success in the cryptocurrency market, or was it the rapid development of blockchain technology that caught his attention?
This question cannot be answered with certainty, but the crypto world is certainly attracting more and more people. The celebrities’ opinion towards cryptocurrencies remains extremely positive. Musician Grimes (Claire Boucher in real life), who is currently in a relationship with Elon Musk, recently sold numerous digital art pieces, worth a total of $6 million, using NFT (non-fungible tokens) which are based purely on blockchain technology.