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Elon Musk’s father — Errol Musk — has emerged as the latest public figure lending his name to a new meme coin, a category of cryptocurrencies known for their high volatility, low utility, and occasionally high returns.
Over the past 24 hours, the "Musk It" meme coin has seen a trading volume of $5.8 million.
Errol Musk’s new token features no involvement from his billionaire son Elon Musk, and currently holds a modest market capitalization of $29 million, according to CoinMarketCap.
While Elon Musk has never released his own cryptocurrency — and he has no affiliation with the "Musk It" meme coin — the Tesla CEO has in the past regularly referenced Dogecoin, one of the world’s most famous meme coins, on his social media accounts. These references have included “Dogecoin Rulz" and "no highs, no lows, only Doge." (Musk is now part of a temporary effort in the U.S. government named DOGE, or the Department of Government Efficiency).
This has landed Musk in hot water, with the billionaire accused of pumping the Dogecoin meme coin in a high-profile $258 billion insider trading case. Last year, however, the lawsuit against the tech tycoon was dismissed by a judge, who said his tweets on Dogecoin were “aspirational and puffery, not factual and susceptible to being falsified.”
Dogecoin is currently trading at a price of $0.26, according to CoinMarketCap.
Meanwhile, his father's Musk It meme coin was initially launched in December by an undisclosed Middle Eastern firm and is primarily being used to raise $200 million for Errol Musk's think tank, the Musk Institute. It remains a small player compared to other high-profile tokens like Dogecoin, according to Cointelegraph.
Earlier this month, the Trump family released their own pair of Solana-based memecoins: $Trump and $Melania. The value of both memecoins plunged dramatically after their public launch.
“I'm not so sure ‘Musk It’ will hit the heights some Trump family meme coins have reached,” blockchain expert Anndy Lian told Cointelegraph. “It feels like Elon's personal stamp is what really gets people excited about these projects… It seems like we're all hungry for that next big hit in crypto, looking for something that could skyrocket overnight,” Lian added.