Elon Musk says dogecoin might be the future of cryptocurrencies - but tells fans they should still invest carefully
- Elon Musk said dogecoin could ironically be the future of cryptocurrencies.
- But he told his followers to be careful, saying it would be "unwise" to invest too much.
- The Tesla boss has been a key driver of 2021's wild cryptocurrency boom.
Elon Musk said dogecoin could ironically be the future of cryptocurrencies, which could themselves become the currencies of the world.
Despite the bold claim, the Tesla billionaire struck a somewhat measured tone in a tweet to his millions of followers on Friday: "Cryptocurrency is promising, but please invest with caution!"
Musk linked to a video from the celebrity news website TMZ in which he said: "First of all, I think people should not invest their life savings in cryptocurrency. To be clear, I think that's unwise."
Musk added: "If you want to sort of, you know, speculate and kind of like, I don't know, maybe have some fun, I mean, it's like, there's a good chance that crypto is the future currency of Earth."
Asked about dogecoin, the meme asset that has rallied more than 25,000% over the past year to become the fourth-biggest cryptocurrency, Musk said the point was that it "was invented as a joke, essentially to make fun of cryptocurrency."
"Fate loves irony," he said, adding: "What would be the most ironic outcome? That the currency that was invented as a joke in fact becomes the real currency."
Musk acknowledged the problems with dogecoin. Asked whether dogecoin's unlimited supply posed a danger to its price compared with bitcoin, which has a fixed supply, Musk said, "Yes, it does." But he later repeated the mantra of dogecoin investors: "To the moon!"
Musk, the cofounder and chief executive of the electric-car company Tesla and the world's second-richest person, has been at the center of 2021's wild boom in cryptocurrencies.
Tesla's announcement in February that it had bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin laid the foundations for a monster rally in the famous crypto asset. And Musk's frequent tweets about dogecoin have been perhaps the main driver of the buzz around the meme token.
Analysts have said the recent breakneck rally in dogecoin was partly because of people trying to get in before Musk's appearance on "Saturday Night Live," where many predict he will riff on cryptocurrencies.