Billionaire Elon Musk said on Monday that Bitcoin is “on the verge” of becoming more widely accepted among investors, expressing support for the cryptocurrency in a chat on the Clubhouse social media app.
Musk’s comments followed his use of the hashtag “#bitcoin” on his Twitter profile on Friday, pushing the cryptocurrency up 14%.
Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, is known for making market-shaking comments on Twitter and recognized it during his debut on the Clubhouse app, which is accessible by invitation only.
“I’m a bitcoin supporter … I was a bit slow on acceptance,” he said, adding that he should have invested eight years ago. “I think Bitcoin is about to gain wide acceptance from mainstream finance folks.”
Bitcoin climbed 3.7% to $ 34,390, having risen more than 300% in 2020.
In the chat, Musk spoke about memes, Mars, his companies and vaccines, among other topics. He also interviewed Vladimir Tenev, co-founder of online securities brokerage app Robinhood, attacked for preventing purchases from GameStop retail investors.
Shares of GameStop rose 400% last week after retail investors rallied to buy shares in the video game retailer, prompting hedge funds to hedge lost bets.
Tenev denied a market rumor that Citadel Securities, a division of Ken Griffin’s hedge fund, had lobbied Robinhood to lock down retail investors.
“That’s just untrue,” Tenev said, adding that Robinhood temporarily halted operations to meet regulatory capital requirements.
Last week, Musk tweeted “Gamestonk !!” something that many in the market interpreted as an apparent show of support for small investors. “Stonks” is an ironic term for actions that are widely used on social media.