(Reuters) - NEW YORK (Reuters) - After Elon Musk's tweets this year converted the once-obscure digital currency into a speculator's fantasy, investors are looking forward to the billionaire's guest-host role on this weekend's "Saturday Night Live" comedy sketch TV show.
On Saturday, at 11:30 p.m. EDT, Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk will host the program (030 GMT on Sunday). The timing puts Musk, who is also regarded as a cryptocurrency enthusiast, back in the spotlight at a time when Tesla's stock is losing momentum after a meteoric rise last year.
Musk is one of the few business moguls who has been asked to host the venerable sitcom.
The outspoken CEO has made several remarks on Twitter about cryptocurrencies and has chastised traditional money for having negative real interest rates. In February, he said, "Only a fool wouldn't look elsewhere."
That month, his enigmatic tweets "Doge" and "Dogecoin is the people's crypto" sparked a rally in dogecoin, which was created as a parody of the more popular bitcoin and ethereum.
Musk, dressed in a black bandana and joined by musical guest Miley Cyrus in a promotional video for the show, joked, "I'm a wild card, no telling what I may do." “It's the same here,” Cyrus said. “Do you have any rules?” “Thank you, but no.”
“Cryptocurrency is promising, but please invest with caution!” Musk tweeted on Thursday. “It should be called speculation at this point,” he said in a video clip attached. So, you know, don't get too carried away with crypto speculation...”
In the video, he also said that cryptocurrency has a "fair chance" of being "the future currency of the planet."
One individual shouted at Musk in the video, "My dogecoin went up after you tweeted." “You're incredible. “How did you do it?” I inquire.
Dogecoin has soared more than 800 percent in the last month, according to crypto data tracker CoinGecko.com, and is now the fourth-largest digital currency, with a market capitalization of $81 billion. It was the last trading at $0.62, up nearly 14% on the day.
It has surpassed more commonly used cryptocurrencies such as litecoin and tether in terms of use.
“The recent rise in Dogecoin is a continuation of the greater fool theory pattern we've seen play out over the last couple of months,” David Kimberley, an analyst at trading app Freetrade, said.
“More people are becoming aware of what's going on and are trying to cash in on the gravy train. Elon Musk likely pumping the coin on prime-time American television tomorrow would only help to exacerbate the situation and drive up the price.”
Tesla announced in February that it had purchased $1.5 billion in bitcoin and would soon embrace it as a form of payment for its electric vehicles, marking a significant step toward mainstream adoption and sending bitcoin to a new high of nearly $62,000.
Tesla's stock rose 1.3 percent to $672.37 on Friday.
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