Elon Musk sparks Pepe meme craze, but also sends coins tumbling.
Elon Musk's influence is really a double-edged sword. His every move can cause huge fluctuations in the market.
When Tesla CEO Elon Musk changed his Twitter name to Kekius Maximus, the market value of the memecoin Kekius Maximus (KEKIUS) soared from $12.7 million to nearly $400 million in just 30 hours, an astonishing increase of more than 3,000%. However, as fast as it rose, it fell as fast. When Musk changed his profile back to normal, the token plummeted 67% in an hour, shrinking its market value to $95 million.
KEKIUS, also known as "Frog Emperor Pepe", is an artwork based on the popular internet frog meme, depicting it as the ruler of a mythical empire. The meme was said to have been originally created using Twitter's native AI tool Grok, and Twitter boss Musk gave it his stamp of approval on December 10.
In the following days, the Pepe-inspired meme grew in popularity, including posts from journalist Autism Capital, the official Pepe memecoin account, and Musk about the Grok-generated meme. This prompted KEKIUS to launch on Ethereum and climb to a market cap of $1.7 million on December 27.
When Musk announced that his (Path of Exile) character would be named Kekius Maximus, the market cap jumped again by nearly 1,300% to $20 million. But the real spike came after Musk changed his profile picture and name to a Grok-derived meme on New Year’s Eve, which caused Kekius’ market cap to almost touch $400 million.
However, with the arrival of the new year, news broke that a Tesla Cybertruck exploded outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas, and the driver was unfortunately killed in the explosion. In response to this sudden incident, Musk restored his original Twitter account and profile picture. He posted: "The entire senior team of Tesla is investigating this matter." He added: "We have now confirmed that the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb in the cabin of the rented Cybertruck, and had nothing to do with the vehicle itself."
The name and profile picture change was made to address still-developing events — currently suspected to be an act of terror — which caused KEKIUS to plummet 83% from its all-time high in just 10 hours.
Musk has not posted anything on Kekius Maximus since the explosion. Instead, he has turned his attention to British politics, pleading for the release of far-right activist Tommy Robinson. Robinson was jailed last October for contempt of court for repeatedly making false statements that were overturned in court. He also supports Reform UK, the sixth largest political party in the UK.
Musk's influence is truly amazing, and every move he makes can cause huge fluctuations in the market. But we should also see that the rise and fall of the market depends not only on personal influence, but also on a variety of factors. Therefore, when investing, we should look at market fluctuations rationally and not blindly follow the trend.
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