Musk 'trolling' puts brakes on bitcoin's rebound (updated)
04/06/2021 05:43
* Musk heartbreak tweet pushes BTC down 4%
* Cryptos set to log weekly gains in recovery from crash
(Updates prices, adds analyst quote and background)
By Tom Westbrook
SINGAPORE, June 4 (Reuters) - Bitcoin BTC=BTSP slipped 4%
on Friday after Tesla boss Elon Musk was at it again - this time
firing off a few tweets that appeared to lament a breakup with
the cryptocurrency.
Tesla's big position in bitcoin and Musk's large personal
following often set crypto markets on edge whenever he tweets,
and the price fell after he posted "#Bitcoin", a broken-heart
emoji and a picture of a couple discussing a breakup.
Musk followed that up by posting a breakup comic strip and
replying "nice" to an illustration of rival crypto dogecoin
posted by crypto exchange Coinbase COIN.O . It was unclear
what, if anything, any of the tweets meant.
Musk has previously said Tesla would not sell its bitcoin,
but his tweets were enough to unsettle markets still fragile
following May's crash.
"He's trolling the community," said Bobby Ong, co-founder of
crypto data aggregator and analytics website CoinGecko.
Friday's fall pushed bitcoin below its 20-day moving average
to $37,710, and took some of the edge off its week-to-date gains
- though it has still climbed nearly 6% to put it on course for
its best week in about a month.
Musk has been a major promoter of cryptocurrencies but has
turned critical of bitcoin since suspending Tesla plans to take
it in payment for cars, owing to concerns about its energy use.
Bitcoin and several other cryptocurrencies are still
recovering from a crash last month in the wake of that decision
and on news of renewed regulatory scrutiny in China.
Telsa TSLA.O stock has now fallen by a third since it
announced a $1.5 billion bitcoin purchase in February, and
bitcoin is more than 40% below April's record peak of
$64,895.22.
The second-biggest cryptocurrency ether ETH=BTSP wasn't
spared by sellers either, slipping around 4% on Friday to
$2,750, but it still looks on course for a second consecutive
weekly gain of greater than 10%.
Dogecoin, perhaps the most sensitive to Musk's opinions as
he helped to turn it around from a joke at the bottom of the
value heap to a multi-billion dollar market valuation, also
slipped slightly before it steadied just under $0.40 on Friday.
It is up about 40% since Sunday.
(Reporting by Tom Westbrook; Editing by Tom Hogue & Shri
Navaratnam)
((tom.westbrook@tr.com; +65 6973 8284;))