Floki Inu surged 18% in under an hour today after Elon Musk tweeted an image of a Viking ship discovered on the moon.
At 7:39 AM UTC, the Dogecoin-inspired token's price was $0.0002245. An hour later, it had jumped to $0.00026452.
While on the surface the cartoon’s punchline is that the Vikings were the first to reach everywhere, including the moon, it could have a different meaning for crypto enthusiasts. Here’s why.
Floki Goes To The Moon
Musk’s tweet brought together the perfect storm for a Floki Inu ‘mooning’.
The terms ‘mooning’, or ‘to the moon’ is frequently used by cryptocurrency holders to celebrate their coin seeing a sharp price increase - as Floki Inu did after this tweet.
The memecoin gets its name from Musk’s Shiba Inu puppy, Floki. Stemming from the Norseman Hrafna-Flóki Vilgerðarson, Floki Inu leans heavily into the Viking theme for its marketing.
Its logo depicts a Shiba Inu wearing a Viking hat, while it attempts to create an NFT metaverse called ‘Valhalla’ for its community of ‘Floki Vikings’.
Combining these together meant Floki was in a prime position for a drastic price surge.
It's unlikely that the Tesla CEO meant to reference Floki Inu, given he recently dismissed owning FLOKI. Instead, Musk said he only owns Dogecoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin. However, this has not stopped the Floki Vikings from running with the tweet.
The official Floki Inu account retweeted Musk, dubbing the Dogefather ‘King of the Vikings’.
This is not the first time a seemingly inconspicuous Elon Musk tweet has led to a massive price increase for a Doge-based coin. An image of Musk’s puppy saw Shiba Inu Coin (SHIB) rise 15% in 20 minutes. The SHIB community has since distanced itself from Musk after he admitted to not holding any SHIB.
Floki Inu is currently up 6.8% in the past 24 hours, and 375% in the last week. It is still down 16.1% from its All-Time High of $0.00030954. The memecoin rolled out a large physical advertising campaign last month, with its adverts appearing across the London Underground.
Read More: Tesla Website Adds ‘Shiba’ Into Payment Source Code, But Probably Not For SHIB
[Image: Steve Jurvetson/Nicolas Thomas]
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