Tesla's big position in bitcoin and Musk's large personal
following often set crypto markets on edge whenever he tweets, and the price
fell after he posted "#Bitcoin", a broken-heart emoji and a picture
of a couple discussing a breakup.
Musk followed that up by posting a breakup comic strip and
replying "nice" to an illustration of rival crypto dogecoin posted by
crypto exchange Coinbase. It was unclear what, if anything, any of the tweets
meant.
Musk has previously said Tesla would not sell its bitcoin,
but his tweets were enough to unsettle markets still fragile following May's
crash.
"He's trolling the community," said Bobby Ong,
co-founder of crypto data aggregator and analytics website CoinGecko.
Friday's fall pushed bitcoin below its 20-day moving average
to $37,710, and took some of the edge off its week-to-date gains - though it
has still climbed nearly 6% to put it on course for its best week in about a
month.
Musk has been a major promoter of cryptocurrencies but has
turned critical of bitcoin since suspending Tesla plans to take it in payment
for cars, owing to concerns about its energy use.
Bitcoin and several other cryptocurrencies are still
recovering from a crash last month in the wake of that decision and on news of
renewed regulatory scrutiny in China.
Telsa stock has now fallen by a third since it announced a
$1.5 billion bitcoin purchase in February, and bitcoin is more than 40% below
April's record peak of $64,895.22.
The second-biggest cryptocurrency ether wasn't spared by
sellers either, slipping around 4% on Friday to $2,750, but it still looks on
course for a second consecutive weekly gain of greater than 10%.
Dogecoin, perhaps the most sensitive to Musk's opinions as
he helped to turn it around from a joke at the bottom of the value heap to a
multi-billion dollar market valuation, also slipped slightly before it steadied
just under $0.40 on Friday.
It is up about 40% since Sunday.