Dogecoin: Gene Simmons Bought Six-Figures Worth of Rising Cryptocurrency

Kiss frontman Gene Simmons joined in on the high-risk investing frenzy this week with a massive purchase of Dogecoin. The rock star took to Twitter on Friday afternoon to let fans know he had put “six figures” into the cryptocurrency. Simmons is now being credited with “pumping” the investment along with Tesla founder Elon Musk.

Simmons has been tweeting about the Dogecoin phenomenon all week, and on Friday he indicated that he would not be slowing down by picking up at least $100,000 in the cryptocurrency. He then spent hours retweeted memes about himself, seeming to join in on the internet subculture now spreading out from Reddit’s Wall Street Bets forum to other corners of social media. At the same time, some analysts suspect that Simmons just made a very shrewd financial move.

Simmons joined Musk in a new stratosphere of celebrity financial influence on Friday, according to a report by Decrypto. The cryptocurrency-focused site argued that Dogecoin’s volatile price this week “emphasizes how susceptible crypto is to social media,” and what kind of power a big influencer like Musk or Simmons can hold over it. With both a personal stake in Dogecoin’s value and some apparent level of control over it, Simmons can now effectively make his own money, if he can play his cards right.

Musk may have realized this advantage as well. For the last few days, he has been not-so-subtlely promoting Dogecoin speculation on Twitter, giving amateur investors more confidence in following him into that uncharted territory. Sure enough, on Thursday Musk managed to send Dogecoin soaring up 40 percent simply by tweeting a meme of himself.

Commenters on both Musk and Simmons’ shared theories and rumors about how high they thought the currency’s value would rise, or on applications it might have in the future. So far, none of these posts have proven true, but Simmons and Musk have likely seen some jumps in their portfolios.

It’s worth noting that these tweets are not a surefire way to pump the value of a cryptocurrency. On Friday, Simmons’ tweet reportedly led to a slight drop in Dogecoin prices within 15 minutes. Overall, however, it has been on the rise since the two celebrities got involved.

Cryptocurrencies remain a confusing, volatile and potentially dangerous form of investment overall. They are a digital asset based on blockchain technology, which some expect to play a pivotal role in the future of economics, infrastructure and plenty of other parts of daily life. For now, however, investing in cryptocurrency for the hope of a return means that your money could be at the mercy of a man like Gene Simmons.