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Musk wrote simply "#bitcoin" in his biography on the social
media site. The world's biggest cryptocurrency was up 10.2% at
$36,901 as of 1005 GMT.
The billionaire entrepreneur, followed by 43.8 million users on
Twitter, has a record of making market-moving comments on the
site.
GameStop Corp, which has been at the centre of retail trading
frenzy, surged 50% on Tuesday after Musk tweeted "Gamestonk!!",
along with a link to the Reddit Wallstreetbets stock trading
discussion group. There, supporters affectionately refer to him
as "Papa Musk."
"Stonks" is a tongue-in-cheek term for stocks widely used on
social media.
Bitcoin jumped over 300% last year, as bigger U.S. investors and
corporations sought exposure to the cryptocurrency. It touched
an all-time high of $42,000 last month.
In December, Musk asked 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.
"That would be a very big deal," said Christopher Bendiksen of
digital asset manager CoinShares on Friday.
Traders also cited positive comments on bitcoin by hedge fund
manager Ray Dalio as supporting sentiment.
The Bridgewater Associates founder wrote on Thursday that the
cryptocurrency was "one hell of an invention," adding that he
viewed it as a "gold-like alternative asset."
Smaller cryptocurrencies including ethereum and XRP that tend to
move in tandem with bitcoin also jumped, as much as 5% and 8%
respectively.
(Reporting by Tom Wilson. Editing by Thyagaraju Adinarayan and
Mark Potter)
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