KEY POINTS
- Musk gained $4.1 billion at the start of this week, pumping his total net worth to about $240.7 billion
- X token, the native token of the defunct decentralized marketplace X NFT, saw over 2,000% surge
- DOGE saw a 1.97% gain and was trading in the green zone at $0.07694 as of 8:30 a.m. ET on Tuesday
Tech billionaire Elon Musk reclaimed his title as the world’s richest man and triggered shockwaves in the cryptocurrency market after announcing the social media platform was now rebranded as simply X.
The crypto asset that benefited from Musk’s announcement was the unrelated microcap X token, the native token of the defunct decentralized marketplace X NFT, which saw a surge of over 2,000%, following the rebranding, based on the data from CoinMarketCap.
Unfortunately, the surge was short-lived as interest in the token retreated, showing a drop in its 24-hour trading volume under $100,000 and its market capitalization plummeting from its $2.5 million peak to $959,876.
Dogecoin, Musk’s favorite crypto asset and the world’s first-ever meme coin, immediately surged by 8.4% as the Twitter rebranding went live.
Apart from the crypto market reaction, the rebranding also moved Musk to the top of the list of billionaires. Over the weekend, Forbes revealed the Tesla CEO was back in the top spot on the magazine’s real-time list of billionaires after Bernard Arnault, the founder, chairman, and CEO of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton dethroned him last Friday when the stocks of the American electric vehicle maker plummeted to nearly 10%, nosediving his net worth by $18 billion.
Musk, based on the publication’s calculations, gained another $4.1 billion at the start of this week, pumping his total net worth to approximately $240.7 billion, which was due to the 2.5% surge in the value of Tesla’s stock.
Before Musk climbed back to the top spot of the world’s richest billionaires, he rolled out a rebrand, which changed the iconic blue bird to a simple X logo, a modification that was later confirmed by Twitter CEO Linda Yocarino in a series of tweets over the weekend.
“It’s an exceptionally rare thing – in life or in business – that you get a second chance to make another big impression,” Yocarino tweeted. “Twitter made one massive impression and changed the way we communicate. Now, X will go further, transforming the global town square.”
“X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine,” the new Twitter CEO tweeted, seemingly hinting that AI will be soon integrated into what Musk calls “everything app.”
It’s an exceptionally rare thing – in life or in business – that you get a second chance to make another big impression. Twitter made one massive impression and changed the way we communicate. Now, X will go further, transforming the global town square.
— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayacc) July 23, 2023
But, while some Twitter users were skeptical about the rebranding of the platform, Musk’s recent move triggered shockwaves in the cryptocurrency market, which printed red indexes at the start of the week.
DOGE saw a 1.97% gain and was trading in the green zone at $0.07694 with its 24-hour trading volume up by 5.29% at $1,173,954,924, while X token saw a 27.90% loss and was trading in the red zone at $0.0002464 with a 24-hour trading volume down by 31.48% at $159,521 as of 8:30 a.m. ET on Tuesday, based on the latest data from CoinMarketCap.
