Even if the billionaire doesn’t give up his new toy willingly, it may soon slip through his fingers anyway.
Elon Musk’s tendency to sway the crypto space with devil-may-care tweets was on display again on Friday, as numerous coins lost between 10–18% in the wake of Musk’s latest Bitcoin (BTC) meme.
The Tesla CEO’s tweet which showed a Bitcoin sign next to a broken heart emoji could have been interpreted as fairly cryptic, but within minutes the crypto market responded by plunging into a sea of red, as close to $100 billion departed the global market cap.
Industry executives, while concerned with the influence Musk exerts on the crypto space, are now growing hopeful that Bitcoin can escape his gravitational pull. Friday’s sell-off was actually an example of this, said the chief operating officer of payment network Mercuryo, Greg Waisman, who pointed out that the latest drop wasn’t quite as violent as others had been in the past.
“To a large extent, Bitcoin investors are learning to ignore tweets from Elon Musk and this was made evident as the price drop was not as huge as we have seen before. Bitcoin investors strive to maintain a united front by limiting how they panic sell. This is a good start for Bitcoin,” said Waisman.
Waisman said traders were slowly accumulating the industry knowledge that will eventually make Musk’s tweets irrelevant, adding that factors like jurisdictional regulations would become a more accurate driver of markets in the future.
“We are getting to the point where crypto stakeholders will react only based on relevant fundamentals. The cryptocurrency industry is growing towards maturity, and to a large extent, knowledge accumulation is taking the center stage,” said Waisman.
“As market stakeholders get additional knowledge, they will learn to base their decisions on the influences that matter most, like regional regulations,” he added.
Nick Spanos, co-founder of ZAP Protocol, agreed that previous tweets from Elon Musk had proven more destructive to Bitcoin than the one posted on Friday. Spanos said this was a sign that traders were beginning to ignore Musk’s influence.
“After today’s tweet of Elon Musk which has pushed Bitcoin price down by roughly 5%, there is some sort of resistance from the coin. But despite its drop Bitcoin is comfortably trading above the critical price level of $36,000,” said Spanos.
“From previous trends, the cryptocurrency usually sees steeper plunges but the current 6.83% is a sign that the market is proving to be unmindful of the billionaire’s influence,” he added.
Konstantin Anissimov, executive director at CEX.IO, shared similar sentiments, noting that the entire crypto market couldn’t bow to mere individuals like Musk for much longer and that global regulatory matters would soon take center stage.
“I feel at some point the crypto market will grow independent of influence from influential people like Elon irrespective of their large follower base on Twitter and only bow to influence from regulators and happenings in the global and international market,” said Anissimov.
