Elon Musk’s ‘To The Moon’ meme causes a ruckus among Shiba Inus.

A recent tweet from Tesla Inc
CEO Elon Musk may have been the reason for a sharp rise in the price of Shiba Inu SHIB as per several prominent members of the cryptocurrency community.

What Happened: The price of Shiba Inu shot up as much as 22% after a tweet from Musk, with some observers stating that the price increase was down to the fact that the figure in Tesla CEO’s tweet looks like the meme coin’s mascot holding a rocket.

Musk’s image features a rabbit-like creature carrying a rocket, which is widely used as a symbol of the “to the moon” meme in the cryptocurrency community.

Mr. Whale, a prominent Twitter user, was the first to notice the link between Musk’s post and the Shiba Inu rise.

Why It Matters: Musk didn’t name Shiba Inu in the tweet, but it’s not the first time his comments have had an unintentional influence on the price of a cryptocurrency.

Musk was instrumental in helping Dogecoin DOGE reach an all-time high earlier this year, while the SpaceX creator also caused the price of Bitcoin to plummet after raising worries about Bitcoin mining’s detrimental impact on the environment.

Musk replied to a series of tweets about Dogecoin earlier this week, driving the parody coin’s price up.

Shiba Inu was trading 7% higher at $0.00002788 at press time on Monday morning. Over the last seven days, it has gained 2.8 percent. Dogecoin was trading at $0.24, up 0.9 percent. Meanwhile, smaller meme currencies like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu are gaining a lot of traction.