Tesla CEO Elon Musk calls himself Bitcoin 'supporter'; prices soar

Bitcoin prices soared afterTesla CEO Elon Musk on Monday said that he is a ''supporter'' of the largest cryptocurrency.

The comments come after Musk's use of a "#bitcoin" tag on his Twitter profile page led to a 14 per centjump in the cryptocurrency on Friday.

"I am a supporter of bitcoin,"Musksaid during his debut on the invitation-only social media app Clubhouse, a conversation that drew thousands of listeners.

"I think bitcoin is on the verge of getting broad acceptance by conventional finance people," he said, adding he should have bought it eight years ago.

"I was a little slow on the uptake ... I do think at this point that bitcoin is a good thing."

Cryptocurrencies have buffeted recently by volatile-retail investor demand shaped online by Twitter feeds and Reddit forms.

Bitcoin was up 2per centat $33,796 on Monday, having surged over 300 per centin 2020. The cryptocurrency jumped over 300per centlast year, as bigger USinvestors and corporations sought exposure to it, and touched an all-time high of $42,000 last month.

In December,Muskasked about the possibility of converting "large transactions" of Tesla's balance sheet into bitcoin, in a Twitter exchange with a well-known advocate for the digital currency.

The Twitter handle of the world's richest person has joined the growing list of things to watch for those trading stocks for personal or professional purposes and comes amid the rising prominence of the'WallStreetBets' Reddit chat room that drove skyrocketing gains for GameStop shares.

That forum grabbedMusk's attention too when he tweeted "Gamestonk!!" on Tuesday, along with a link to the Reddit stock trading discussion group behind the year-to-date 2,500 [per cent-plus rally in the video game retailer.

"Stonks" is a tongue-in-cheek term for stocks widely used on social media. His supporters in the Reddit forum affectionately refer to him as "PapaMusk."

Justifiably, his tweets led to surges in other stocks too.

Shares of fast-growing Polish game developer CD Projekt soared 16 per centon Thursday afterMusktweeted: "The esthetics of Cyberpunk are incredible btw....". Cyberpunk is the company's flagship game.

Similarly, online retailing platform Etsy's stock jumped 9 per centon Tuesday right afterMusktweeted: "I kinda love Etsy". He said he bought a "hand-knit wool Marvin the Martian helm" for his dog.