Cryptocurrency evangelicals were thrilled about Elon Musk’s Saturday Night Live hosting gig, mostly for the sake of their bottom line. But despite all the hope that a mention or two would push the price of the joke crypto to even greater heights, Musk’s appearance on the show seems to have actually caused a plunge.
Hype about Musk hosting amid some outcry from fans and skeptics had pushed the price of the dog-themed currency to record highs in recent days, especially with the assumption that Musk would at least mention it on the NBC comedy program. And he did, including during a Weekend Update sketch where he played a fake financial advisor.
The mentions started during the uneven monologue, when Musk brought his mother, Maye, on stage briefly. She mentioned that she was hoping her Mother’s Day gift wasn’t just Dogecoin, which set Musk up for a joke and drew some cheers from the crowd. But according to Coinbase, right as the monologue played out the trading of Dogecoin started to crater.
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The sketch with Musk as “financial expert Lloyd Ostertag” essentially had the billionaire, in glasses, explaining the history of Dogecoin as Colin Jost and Michael Che ask “what is Dogecoin?” over and over. It essentially sounded like an SEO post about Dogecoin played out on television, the joke being that the cryptocurrency was the focus of the bit in the first place.
Finally, though, all that asking turned into Musk breaking down and telling the truth about the whole deal.
“Yeah, it’s a hustle,” Musk admitted with a smile before an enthusiastic cry of “Dogecoin to the moon!” to end the sketch.
Even with an entire segment about the currency, prices continued to plummet as the show continued on Saturday night. Its Weekend Update mention saw a brief boost, but by show’s end and into Sunday morning the currency was down about 40 percent from its pre-show highs.
Later on, Musk took part in a Wild West sketch where he played “LeRon,” who was an “eccentric” cowboy who had ideas about electric horses, drilling tunnels and a decentralized currency not reliant on mining gold.
If that sounds a lot like Musk playing himself, you probably should also know there was a joke about his very bad coronavirus opinions as well.
“For a while, I thought masks were dumb,” Musk’s character said after he was accused of robbing a bank while refusing to wear one. “But now I admit, Masks make sense.”
