Meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin finally got its long-awaited shoutout on Saturday Night Live — but despite hodler hopes, the immediate result has been a violent dump.
First teased by entrepreneur and DOGE cheerleader Elon Musk in late April, the Tesla CEO finally mentioned the digital asset on live television tonight in his opening monologue of the sketch comedy show. The reference was a throwaway line from Musk's mother, who joined him onstage and asked if her Mother's Day gift would be Dogecoin; Musk replied that it would be.
In the minutes afterwards, $DOGE dumped upwards of 25%, falling as low as $.50 from $.66 highs at the start of the show. It has since partially recovered, trading at $.52 at the time of publication.
An hour before the episode began, the price of DOGE sat at $.66, down from an all-time high of $.72. A pair of bearish headwinds may have shared responsibility for the pullback: Musk himself seemed to try and get ahead of the hype, urging followers in a Tweet to “invest with caution,” and a host of new data indicates that many investors may be rolling their DOGE profits into other, largecap digital assets.