Elon Musk, the Tesla billionaire who earlier this month declared a U.S. "financial emergency," has ventured back into the world of crypto amid a bitcoin price boom that could be just getting started.
The bitcoin price has topped $90,000 per bitcoin, up 20% in a week, as traders eye $100,000 in the wake of Donald Trump's U.S. presidential victory, with Musk's "favorite" cryptocurrency dogecoin leading a price pump that's sent the combined market back over $3 trillion for the first time since 2021.
Now, after a leak revealed BlackRock is quietly planning to double down on bitcoin, Elon Musk has praised the meme-based dogecoin, a cryptocurrency he once vowed to "send to the moon."
"I think the flat inflation of dogecoin, which means decreasing percentage inflation, is a feature, not a bug," Musk posted to X in response to dogecoin co-creator Billy Markus who had suggested users propose removing dogecoin's inflation if they don't like it.
"You can change it right there, make a pull request, convince the community and miners to use the new version," Markus posted, adding inflation"is ideal for something intended as a currency steady predictable inflation with a percentage that goes down" and is "much, much lower than the dollar."
The dogecoin price has this week returned to levels not seen since the Musk-led crypto boom of 2021.
Musk's public comments on bitcoin, crypto and dogecoin through 2021 inflated a lockdown-era crypto bubble that landed Musk in legal trouble when it popped—with a judge dismissing a lawsuit claiming Musk and Tesla pumped up the dogecoin price into a $258 billion “pyramid scheme" earlier this year.
Tesla and Musk's rocket company SpaceX both accept dogecoin for some purchases and Musk has said he personally owns some of the meme-based cryptocurrency.
Musk—named by U.S. president-elect Donald Trump to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency, nicknamed Doge after the meme behind dogecoin—has recently warned inflation could mean the U.S. dollar is heading for "destruction."
Musk hit the campaign trail hard for Trump in the weeks before the U.S. election and is now among a group of heavily pro-bitcoin and crypto advisors that now surrounds the president-elect.
Trump's victory has propelled the bitcoin price higher over the last week as traders bet his administration will mean a softening of crypto regulations and a change of leadership at regulatory agencies that have frowned on crypto markets.
Trump has also floated plans to create a U.S. bitcoin strategic reserve—predicting the bitcoin price could eventually eclipse gold—and the possibility of using bitcoin to pay off the U.S.'s $35 trillion debt pile.
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