How Elon Musk Caused This Squirrel Memecoin To Spike With An Epstein Rant
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk is once again sending ripples through the cryptocurrency market with his tweets.
The billionaire has sent Peanut the Squirrel, a Solana memecoin inspired by a pet squirrel, which went viral after it was euthanized by the state of New York, soaring with a Tuesday rant. The rant came in response to the government's continued failure to release the alleged "Epstein list."
The Epstein list is a purported compilation of famous persons who were co-conspirators in Epstein's sex crimes in the custody of the government, per conspiracy theorists.
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"They arrested (and killed) Peanut, but have not even tried to file charges against anyone on the Epstein client list," Musk said on X. "Government is deeply broken."
The remark was accompanied by a "The Office" meme that expanded on these views.
"More squirrels and raccoons have been arrested than anyone on Epstein's client list," the caption read.
Within minutes of Musk's post, PNUT's price spiked by 5% from $0.22 to $0.23. The token's trading volume also surged about 100% from around $100 million to over $200 million. At last look, the token is trading at $0.24, continuing the Musk-led rally after a brief correction.
Trending: New to crypto? on Coinbase.
Recurring Antics
The PNUT rally is the latest in a long line of incidents where Musk's online antics have sparked speculative cryptocurrency activity. In May, Musk changed his profile name to "gorklon rust," a mashup of references parodying xAI's Grok chatbot, while also changing his profile picture to funkier version of Grok's profile picture, sparking significant rallies in "Gork'-themed memecoins.
Before gorklon rust, it was "Harry Bōlz," in February, in a juvenile attempt to get mainstream news anchors to say the name out loud. In late December and early January, it was "Kekius Maximus."
But Musk is perhaps best known for his advocacy of Dogecoin. The memecoin's 15,500% run to its all-time high of $0.73 in 2021 is widely attributed to his vocal support.Market Manipulation Concerns
Musk's antics have sparked market manipulation concerns over the years, as resulting market rallies are often followed by equally violent market crashes.
And in 2022, a group of investors attempted to cash in on these concerns, filing a lawsuit against Musk and Tesla that alleged that they had manipulated the price of Dogecoin for their profit. But a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2024, ruling that Musk's statements supporting the memecoin were "aspirational and puffery, not factual," adding that 'no reasonable investor could rely upon them.'
Musk, for his part, has said people should only invest in memecoins for fun, likening it to a casino.
"It's like a casino," he said in a February episode of the "Joe Rogan Experience" podcast. "If you expect to win in a casino, you are being a fool. So if you expect to win at memecoins, you are being foolish. You are not going to win at memecoins. Don't sink your life savings into a memecoin."
Read Next: Warren Buffett once said, "If you don't find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die." Here's , starting today.
Image: Shutterstock
This article How Elon Musk Caused This Squirrel Memecoin To Spike With An Epstein Rant originally appeared on Benzinga.com
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