• Elon Musk tweeted in jest about the need for a MarsCoin, in line with his love for cryptocurrencies and Mars.
• An existing project, known as MarsCoin, spiked by 3,000% to hit a new all-time high following the tweet.

Elon Musk is undoubtedly one of the biggest influencers in the cryptocurrency industry. He has been behind some of the biggest pumps in Bitcoin, and most notably, Dogecoin, usually by just a few tweets. His latest tweets have now pushed an entirely new, and little-known cryptocurrency, MarsCoin, to new heights.

While he is most famous as the CEO of electric vehicle giant Tesla, Musk is also the founder of SpaceX. His love for outer space is unmatched and during a recent Twitter exchange, he combined it with his other love – cryptocurrencies.

Musk started off by criticizing the centralization in Dogecoin where most of the supply is controlled by a few wallets. Another Twitter user suggested that Musk should launch Elon Coin and issue it to major Dogecoin holders as an incentive to reduce their positions. Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of the world’s largest exchange Binance pitched in, suggesting MarsCoin as the best name for it.

Musk then went on to confirm that there will definitely be a MarsCoin.

Incidentally, there exists a cryptocurrency by the name MarsCoin already. Musk mentioning it was all the publicity it needed and since then, it has recorded a parabolic surge. Before the tweet, MarsCoin (MARS) was trading at $0.08. Following the unofficial endorsement by Musk, it skyrocketed to hit $2.50, its highest all-time price, a 3,025% surge.

The price has now corrected but is still trading over 987% higher at $0.8769. Its market cap now stands at $21.8 million, up 693% in the past 24 hours. The trading volume also surged by 8,000% to $60,185.

A cryptocurrency for the red planet

MarsCoin is a cryptocurrency that bases its mission on the possibility of human settlement on Mars. On its website, it even cites Musk’s company SpaceX as one of the leaders in this field. It is derived from Litecoin and touts itself as the most viable blockchain platform for voting, trading, capital allocation and inventory tracking on Mars, once man colonizes the red planet.

“If you share our dream of making humans a multi-planetary species, we invite you to join us. Purchasing and using Marscoin supports the non-profit Mars Society and allows you to directly contribute to the exploration and settlement of Mars,” the project states.

On Musk, the team states on the website that they are big fans, because “Who is not?!? And yes, we bought a lot of those Boring Company caps… Elon, if you read this, thanks for all your efforts in getting us to Mars. Forever grateful.”

However, MarsCoin has made it clear that it’s in no way affiliated with the world’s richest man.

This is not the first Musk has tweeted about MarsCoin. In December last year, he backed MarsCoin to be the currency of Mars, once man starts to inhabit the planet. However, at the time, his tweet had little effect on MarsCoin’s price.