Bitcoin's Twitter-volume spikes to new all-time highs on Elon pump

Social media activity for Bitcoin is at an all-time high following a massive endorsement from Tesla CEO, Elon Musk.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, co-founder and CEO of crypto data provider The TIE, Joshua Frank, noted there have been 143,000 tweets over the last 24 hours from “non-bot accounts.”

The new record beats out the previous high of 140,000 from Jan. 3, 2021.

On Feb. 8, news that electric vehicle maker Tesla had added Bitcoin to its balance sheet sent prices and market sentiment to record highs. BTC prices hit an all-time high of $47,500 in early Asian trading on Feb. 9.

Frank described the surge in social engagement as evidencing bullish sentiment among retail traders:

“I think that it's definitely clear that retail is here. We are seeing absolutely massive surges across the board in twitter activity, trading activity, and price movement for altcoins which institutions are not touching. Today's movement can absolutely be attributed to Elon Musk, but BTC social activity has been on a tear all year.”

Musk’s tweet appears to have captured crypto-Twitter’s attention away from CME’s highly anticipated launch of Ether futures contracts on Feb. 8, with Frank noting that Ether’s Twitter-volume had slumped by half after recently enjoying sustained record highs:

“ETH twitter activity was crushing all-time highs recently but wasn't massive today, down about 50% vs. yesterday,” he said.

The run-up to the launch of CME’s Ether futures captured the imaginations of both institutional and retail traders alike, with ETH products representing 80% of last week’s institutional crypto inflows.

Both Ethereum and Bitcoin’s prices are currently cooling after posting new record highs earlier today. As of this writing, the combined crypto market capitalization is sitting at $1.4 trillion.