Dogecoin Prices Plummet 36% After Elon Musk's Lukewarm 'SNL' Debut

SpaceX founder and chief engineer Elon Musk's "Saturday Night Live" debut triggered dogecoin to shed more than a third of its price on Sunday after the cryptocurrency champion joked that it was a "hustle."

With the ensuing interest, dogecoin enthusiasts flocked to Twitter during the show, monitoring the cryptocurrency's movements on the trading market. The Tesla mogul's late-night show debut had Musk return to the spotlight just as the electric vehicle and clean energy company's stocks were losing steam following last year's monster rally, according to Reuters.

Dogecoin started Saturday trading at around 70 cents, selling for about 66 cents just before SNL went on air, Binance showed. Dogecoin reached a low of $0.416 on the crypto exchange on early Sunday, down around 36% compared to levels before the broadcast.

The self-proclaimed “Dogefather” mentioned dogecoin in his opening monologue and on “Weekend Update,” SNL’s satirical news show, pressing on what exactly his meme-inspired cryptocurrency is as well as its benefits.

The billionaire went on to call the dogecoin cryptocurrency "an unstoppable vehicle that's going to take over the world."

As the program progressed to provide Musk the exposure he needed, several users of the Robinhood trading platform reported that its crypto trading wasn’t working due to massive traffic, which was later acknowledged by the company on Twitter. However, the anomaly was resolved in less than an hour.

Critics are quick to point out that it was yet another wasted opportunity on dogecoin's major trading volume thanks to Robinhood. Last month, Robinhood users saw “sporadic crypto order failures” following a dogecoin rally.

In a Q&A with SNL hosts Michael Che and Colin Jost, Musk joked that dogecoin was a “hustle,” and howled, “To the moon,” a catchphrase known among doge enthusiasts.

The price of dogecoin began to rebound during the “Weekend Update” skit and was down about 17% from the beginning of the show, CNBC reported. The market saw dogecoin prices plummet to as much as 29.5%, dropping to 49 cents at one point during the broadcast after a pre-show high.

Wall Street, however, was not expecting dogecoin prices to tumble. Edward Moya, a senior market analyst at Oanda, predicted a successful SNL appearance.

“Musk will undoubtedly have a sketch on cryptocurrencies that will probably go viral for days and further motivate his army of followers to try to send dogecoin to the moon," he said.

According to CNN Business, dogecoin began in 2013 as a joke, supposedly a mere nod to the "doge" meme frenzy at the time. At present, dogecoin serves as the fifth-largest cryptocurrency in the world, with a market value of around $70 billion, according to Coinbase.