Elon Musk shares his pet Shiba Inu's name; prices for alt-coin SHIB surge

Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk may have switched allegiances from Dogecoin. The billionaire entrepreneur riled up the cryptocurrency market with his tweets yet again, but this time for the token dubbed as the "DOGE killer” SHIB. Until last week, the meme-based dog-themed Shiba Inu coin had hit a big slump failing to capitalize on enthusiasm, and managing to recover only slightly, but a 5% dip below its current price pushed the token value to a further low.

SHIB cryptocurrency had been heading downward since May. The real-time Forex analysis and exchange rate firm FXStreet had predicted that the SHIB prices might continue to consolidate after failing to break above a critical resistance trend line as the digital currency struggled to record highs “almost failing to retest the June 12 lows.” There was a possibility of a lower target to be reached for SHIB until the 49-year-old Tesla CEO’s “Musk Effect” betided.

Taking to his official Twitter handle, Musk wrote that he’d be naming his new Shiba Inu dog ‘Floki’. “A cool $SHIB name!” a fan wrote. In May, the Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO dubbed as ‘Dogefather’ had tweeted, “I’m looking for a Shiba pup!” Now his latest tweet about naming that dog led to an instant 25% surge in the market value of the popular Shiba Inu (SHIB) alt-coin in a six-week all-time high, according to CoinGecko. 

[Credit: CoinGecko]

SHIB could see another surge in its market value in the future as the company Voyager recently made Dogecoin the official logo for the American car race driver Landon Cassill. This means that the Shiba Inu coin might become the next Nascar car logo. In fact, Voyager CEO Stephen Ehrlich recently called on Shiba Inu coin investors and fans to download the Voyager app saying that the Shib coin "could be a sponsor of the vehicle someday." Should the popular Shiba Inu coin's logo become the next trademark on the Nascar Xfinity Series car as asked by the fans, the token's value is likely to surge. Voyager Digital has also signed a 19-race sponsorship deal with Cassill and his team JD Motorsports to be fully paid in cryptocurrency. 

Musk's tweet spawns off $FLOKI

Not just that, Musk’s tweet spawned off a whole new cryptocurrency ‘Floki’ [name inspired by a character in the popular TV series Vikings]. Hours after Elon Musk’s tweet, Floki Inu’s ($FLOKI) market prices spiked by a staggering 3,500% making the digital token, that has about 1 trillion coins in circulation, equivalent to $US0.00000140, approximately a 13.3%spike in 24 hours. Etherscan predicts that there are 2,334 $FLOKI holders and the cryptocurrency has just 9,000 transactions to date. Although, it was Musk’s tweet that surged the $FLOKI holders above 1,000. 

According to the roadmap illustrated on the Floki Inu website that features Elon Musk driving with a Shiba Inu pup, the currency aims to expand to 3000+ holders by July. Furthermore, with the help of influencer marketing next month, it plans to hit its ultimate goal of 10,000 holders. But because the cryptocurrency market is highly volatile, it is uncertain to predict the token’s real-world consequences.