Elon Musk, back on Twitter, turns his support to Dogecoin

London: Dogecoin surged more than 50% on Thursday after billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk tweeted his support for the cryptocurrency, two days after he said he was to take a break from Twitter "for a while".

Dogecoin jumped to $0.05798 according to data on blockchain and cryptocurrency website Coindesk. Musk first tweeted "Doge" and immediately followed it up with "Dogecoin is the people's crypto".



The Tesla CEO's tweets about certain companies and cryptocurrencies have sent their prices soaring in recent weeks. Shares in GameStop, Etsy and CD Projekt jumped following comments on his Twitter account about them. In the crypto world, him putting a "#bitcoin" tag on his Twitter bio sent the most popular currency flying last Friday. He has since taken the tag off.

Meanwhile, rival cryptocurrency ethereum is also on a record setting spree as investors buy it before the launch of ethereum futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange next week.

Ethereum rose to record high of $1,698.56 before giving up some of those gains to trade 2.7% lower in early london trading. Bitcoin, the most popular crypto currency, also fell 1.2% to $37,184.

Reuters' Stanley White contributed to this story.