With Trump taking back the White House, tech billionaire Elon Musk will almost certainly play a key role in this next administration. As the crypto market wraps up the news, one of the top-gaining tokens is Musk’s favorite crypto, Dogecoin, which surged 24% as the Republican candidate swept to victory.
During his victory celebration in West Palm Beach, Trump spent four minutes of his 26-minute speech praising Musk, calling him a “special guy” and a “new star.”
“He is a super genius. We must protect our geniuses. We don’t have many of those,” President-elect Trump said.
The Shiba Ina-themed memecoin — often associated with Musk — rose early Wednesday, trading hands at $0.20, its highest since April. It settled around $0.19 on Thursday, a big jump from a year ago when Dogecoin was as low as $0.07.
As a staunch supporter of the Republican nominee, donating more than $118 million to his campaign and wearing a “dark MAGA” hat at many of his rallies, Musk will be one of Trump’s staunchest allies.
Dogecoin fans see Trump’s victory as a major victory for memecoin, as it means there will be more news about Musk and his proposed Department of Government Efficiency, whose acronym DOGE is an obvious reference to the coin.
Trump he said on the campaign trail that he would put Musk in charge of the proposed new DOGE department, which would supposedly oversee government spending and eliminate “fraud and improper payments.”
Asked about the department at a municipal campaign event in Pennsylvania, Musk replied, “Yes, DOGE.” the rise 15%
Dogecoin is up 157% in the past year after Musk threw his fortune and influence behind Trump after his assassination attempt in July. In the days after Musk endorsement on trump XDogecoin rose 24%.
Musk has a long history of influencing the price of Dogecoin. In May 2021, after numerous endorsements by the billionaire, including an SNL skit in which he called himself the “dogefather,” the coin’s market cap reached a record high of $88 billion.
The promotion of the coin led to a group action the case where he was accused of a pump-and-dump scheme to inflate the price of memecoin. However, the case was dropped in August.
Dogecoin is currently the eighth largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of over $28 billion.
