Elon Musk went from cryptocurrency hero to villain with Bitcoin tweet

One tweet from Elon Musk caused the world of cryptocurrency to go into meltdown. Now his former fans are fighting back with an aptly-named coin.

In February, when billionaire company founder and cult icon Elon Musk announced that Tesla was buying $1.5 billion ($1.94 billion Aussie dollars) worth of Bitcoin, he quickly became the most public and wealthy face backing the cryptocurrency movement.

Then in March when Musk announced that Tesla would be accepting Bitcoin as payment for their cars, many in the crypto space believed they had a found a worthy standard bearer and leader to prosecute their cause.

Musk would also use social media to voice his support for other cryptocurrencies, and since last year has tweeted several supportive messages directed at the joke-based cryptocurrency, Dogecoin.

A number of celebrities such as rapper Snoop Dogg, Kiss frontman Gene Simmons and former porn actor Mia Khalifa also jumped on the Dogecoin bandwagon.

In just a few short months, Musk had cemented himself at the centre of the public’s collective consciousness when they thought about crypto.

RELATED: Musk’s ‘$10b tweet’ sends crypto soaring

You can now buy a Tesla with Bitcoin

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 24, 2021

Do you want Tesla to accept Doge?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 11, 2021

As a result of Musk’s support for Dogecoin and cryptocurrency more broadly, many of his followers and folks looking to get rich quick started buying Dogecoin.

On January 1, one Dogecoin was worth just 0.4 US cents. By the time it peaked last week, the price had risen to over 73 US cents, a rise of 18,250 per cent.

With the early adopters of Dogecoin getting rich and Bitcoin continuing to rise since Musk announced that Tesla would be buying Bitcoin, Musk swiftly became the darling of the crypto community.

When it was revealed in late April that Musk had sold $272 million worth of Tesla’s Bitcoins, Musk claimed Tesla sold the Bitcoin to prove that they had liquidity (the ability to be easily bought or sold for cash).

RELATED: Elon Musk sparks crypto frenzy

SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Picture: Britta Pedersen-Pool/Getty Images.

At the time, many of Musk’s followers continued to throw their support behind the billionaire – after all, Dogecoin was still rocketing and Musk was still tweeting messages of support.

Then, in the space of less than a week, Musk went from cryptocurrency’s greatest hero to become the space’s greatest villain.

The break-up of Elon Musk’s and crypto

Last Saturday, Musk hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live, during which he admitted Dogecoin was “a hustle”.

Despite this admission, some of Musk’s followers leapt to defend his comments, with some going to the lengths of arguing the definition of the word “hustle” in order to justify Musk’s position, which had just tanked the value of their investments in mere hours.

Then on Thursday morning, Musk took an action against cryptocurrency that could not be explained away by arguing the definitions of a word – Musk announced that Tesla would no longer be accepting Bitcoin as a payment for their cars.

Tesla & Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/YSswJmVZhP

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2021

Musk cited environmental concerns surrounding the carbon emissions related to Bitcoin transactions as the reasoning for Tesla’s relatively swift change of heart.

According to one analysis, a single Bitcoin transaction uses as much energy as over 600,000 Visa transactions.

American comedian and late night host Bill Maher summed up Bitcoin’s issues with energy usage in a monologue for his show a few weeks ago.

“Bitcoin uses more electricity per transaction than any other method known to mankind. … Bitcoin uses more energy than Netflix, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Google combined.”

As a result of Musk changing Tesla’s policy on accepting Bitcoin as payment for their vehicles, the crypto community’s mood on Musk flipped rapidly.

A new crypto on the block

Just hours after Musk’s announcement, the hashtag #Dontbuytesla started trending on Twitter and Musk’s tweets were filled with thousands of angry people incensed by Musk’s perceived betrayal.

One crypto developer clearly took Musk’s announcement quite hard, quickly developing an entirely new cryptocurrency for the occasion.

Mere hours later, over $78,000 US dollars worth of “F*** ELON MUSK” coin had already been traded.

The new currency F*** Elon Musk started taking off.

With controversy over Tesla no longer accepting Bitcoin hitting the headlines, the price of Bitcoin plummeted over $9000 to hit its lowest level since early March.

The rest of the cryptospace followed Bitcoin down, with Ethereum (widely considered Silver to Bitcoin’s Gold) falling 16.2 per cent in just a few hours.

Prominent investor and social media personality Dave Portnoy quickly took to Twitter to call Musk out for “trying to tank Bitcoin”.

In an angry expletive-filled video, Portnoy accused Musk of deliberately trying to drive down the value of Bitcoin and “not giving a f***” about the regular, everyday people who followed Musk’s lead and purchased cryptocurrency.

Portnoy may have been the first prominent figure to voice his anger and frustration with Musk’s actions, but it’s doubtful he will be the last.

In the film Batman: The Dark Knight, villain Harry Dent famously said: “You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

In the case of Elon Musk, these words ring all too true.

In the space of less than six months, Musk went from being the hero of millions of cryptocurrency advocates and the standard bearer of a new digital world, to the crypto world’s greatest villain.

Whether or not the anger with Musk from the crypto community will persist after his perceived betrayal is anyone’s guess. But one lesson has been clear in all of this – one man with no regulatory power whatsoever is able to move cryptocurrency markets all on his own.

Tarric Brooker is a freelance journalist and social commentator | @AvidCommentator