Elon Musk Triggers Pump-and-Dump of Cryptocurrency With Cryptic Social Media Posts

Crypto-friendly billionaire Elon Musk is known for his cryptic social media posts. This time, his online activity triggered a dramatic pump-and-dump of cryptocurrency.

Billionaire Elon Musk, known for his affinity towards cryptocurrency, has once again caused a stir in the crypto world with his cryptic social media activity. This time, his profile picture and name changes on X (formerly Twitter) have triggered a dramatic pump-and-dump of a meme-based cryptocurrency called Kekius Maximus.

On Tuesday, Musk changed his X profile photo and name to reference the cryptocurrency, leading to a 900% surge in its price, reaching an all-time high of $0.4011, according to data from CoinGecko.

Adding fuel to the fire, Musk followed up with a post on X, stating, “Kekius Maximus will soon reach level 80 in hardcore PoE.”

The term “PoE” likely refers to “Path of Exile 2”, a video game that Musk is known to play. However, Musk soon changed his profile picture and name back to the original one, causing the cryptocurrency to decline sharply.

Kekius Maximus is currently trading at $0.1363, representing a loss of over 60% in the past 24 hours, CoinGecko data shows.

The term Kekius is derived from “kek,” an internet slang equivalent to “lol,” while Maximus references the iconic Roman general Maximus Decimus Meridius, famously portrayed in the movie Gladiator by actor Russell Crowe.

What is “Kekius Maximus”?

Elon Musk first mentioned the phrase “Kekius Maximus” on December 13, 2024, without offering any explanation for its meaning. However, crypto enthusiasts wasted no time in capitalizing on the buzz, launching a cryptocurrency under the same name.

According to CoinGecko, a crypto-tracking site, Kekius Maximus was trading at just $0.0006923 on December 17, 2024. Since then, its value has skyrocketed by an astounding 19,877.9%.

Musk and his affinity for memecoins

This isn't Musk's first rodeo when it comes to influencing the crypto space. Throughout his time on social media, he has used the platform to mention certain phrases or cryptocurrencies, which often led to dramatic price movements.

The most prominent example is Dogecoin, the top memecoin that gained massive support from Musk in 2021, following the GameStop saga. Musk's tweets and endorsements helped propel Dogecoin to become one of the largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.