Dogecoin has surged by 29 percent, touching its highest value since mid-February after Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted that his space exploration company will put a “literal” version of the meme cryptocurrency on the moon.

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At first, Twitter users thought that it might be an April Fools' Day prank. However, it was no joke. Musk posted a tweet to his 50 million followers: “SpaceX is going to put a literal Dogecoin on the literal moon.”

SpaceX is going to put a literal Dogecoin on the literal moon

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 1, 2021As per a Business Insider report, Dogecoin surged to a high of $0.70 on the Bittrex exchange, marking a 29 percent rise from the point Musk put out the tweet. Besides, it’s an open secret that the world’s richest person is a vocal fan of cryptocurrency and has even bought some for his nine-month-old son, X AE A-XII.

Well, this isn’t the first time that Musk has tweeted about the meme cryptocurrency. He frequently posts memes starring Shiba Inu, the dog breed that lend the cryptocurrency its logo and name. Apart from that, he has also said that he wants to buy a Shiba Inu.

In February, Musk had posted a poll on Twitter, asking his followers to choose the “future currency of Earth”. There were two options — ‘Dogecoin to the Moooonn’ and ‘All other crypto combined’. A whopping 71.3 percent of the nearly 2.4 million voters were in favour of the first option.

The future currency of Earth

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 6, 2021

Later that month, he tweeted a meme of the dog in a spacesuit on the moon, holding a Dogecoin flag. This tweet made the stocks of the cryptocurrency surge by leaps and bounds.

Literally pic.twitter.com/XBAUqiVsPH

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 24, 2021

Earlier, in February Musk posted a series of tweets hailing Dogecoin. His tweets included the picture of a rocket reaching the moon, and then following it up with a one-word tweet: “Doge”.

pic.twitter.com/vviUzWhodT

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 4, 2021

Doge

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 4, 2021

Dogecoin was created in 2013 by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer as a joke. It is “an open-source, peer-to-peer digital currency, favoured by Shiba Inus worldwide,” a description on Dogecoin.com states.