Tesla CEO Elon Musk Just Sent Bitcoin Sharply Higher, Boosting Its Price Over 20%

Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of Tesla

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who’s ridden the electric car-marker’s soaring share price toward to the top of the world’s rich lists this year, has boosted the price of bitcoin.

The bitcoin price, after dipping under $30,000 per bitcoin this week, suddenly leaped 20% higher after Musk changed his Twitter bio to “#bitcoin” and posted: “In retrospect, it was inevitable.”

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Musk’s comments come after free-trading app Robinhood sparked an almighty row yesterday by restricting users from trading GameStop

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and other stocks that have become a battleground for bullish retail traders organised via Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum and Wall Street hedge funds that have long been shorting the stocks.

Robinhood, who joined other brokerages in limiting trader’s access to the frothy stocks, has said it plans to lift restrictions later today.

Following the ban, traders flocked to the famously-free-for-all cryptocurrency market, with dogecoin—a tongue-in-cheek bitcoin rival previously named by Musk as his “fav” cryptocurrency—adding a blistering 500% and climbing to just outside the cryptocurrency top ten.

Musk’s bio change, as well as sending the bitcoin price sharply higher, was cheered by the bitcoin and cryptocurrency community.

“Bitcoin becomes the flag of technology, and all web services gradually get rebuilt on crypto,” technology investor and former Coinbase chief technology officer Balaji Srinivasan said via Twitter. “We’re going back to our roots: encryption, privacy, peer-to-peer, the rights of the individual, free expression, and decentralization of power.”

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Musk has long flirted with bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, regularly posting about bitcoin (and dogecoin) on Twitter and praising it in interviews.

Earlier this month, Musk set the world of bitcoin and cryptocurrency alight when he said he would never turn down being paid in the bitcoin.

In December, Musk sparked wild speculation his electric car company could add bitcoin to its balance sheet during a public exchange on Twitter.