Dogecoin price drops as Elon Musk hosts Saturday Night Live

As Elon Musk – the self-proclaimed “Dogefather” – made his “Saturday Night Live” debut, the price of dogecoin fell off a cliff.

The memes-inspired cryptocurrency fell 29.5% to 49 cents at one point. Musk mentioned dogecoin in his opening monologue and on “Weekend Update,” SNL’s satirical news show. In a question-and-answer session with hosts Michael Che and Colin Jost, Musk called himself the “Dogefather,” said dogecoin was a “hurry,” and yelled, “To the moon,” a popular slogan. among doge enthusiasts eager to showcase the value of dollar cryptocurrency.

The price of dogecoin started to rebound during the “Weekend Update” skit. As of this writing, it is worth 57 cents, down about 17% from the start of the show.

During the frantic sale, several Robinhoods users complained that Robinhood’s crypto trading was not working.

The company confirmed the failure on Twitter. Service was restored in less than an hour.

This is not the first time that Robinhood has missed a significant volume of dogecoin transactions. Last month, the trading platform said clients suffered “sporadic crypto order failures” during a dogecoin rally.

Wall Street did not expect the plunge.

“Also known as Dogefather, Musk will undoubtedly have a sketch of cryptocurrencies that will likely go viral for days and further motivate his army of followers to try and send Dogecoin to the moon,” wrote Edward Moya. , senior market analyst in Oanda, in a May 4 memo.

Dogecoin fans were in droves on Twitter during the show, and the live streams on YouTube were devoted to watching SNL and tracking Dogecoin’s movements at the same time.

Tesla’s electric rivals have decided to make the most of Musk’s fan connection by buying airtime. Lucid, Ford and Volkswagen all ran ads. Tesla in particular does not advertise on television.

Musk made mention of a rival tonight. “I could say something really shocking as I drive a Prius.”

Disclosure: “Saturday Night Live” is a television show from NBCUniversal, CNBC’s parent company. CNBC owns the exclusive off-grid cable rights to “Shark Tank,” which features Mark Cuban as a panelist.