Elon Musk holds his son at an event [File]
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

Elon Musk’s change of his name and profile picture on the X social media platform on December 31 has triggered a price increase for some meme-based cryptocurrency tokens, as many buyers were likely influenced by the billionaire’s profile update.

Musk changed his X user name to ‘Kekius Maximus,’ and updated his profile picture to show the character Pepe the Frog in historical metal armour. Many saw this as a reference to far-right meme imagery and the Ridley Scott film ‘Gladiator.’

Following this change, some crypto tokens with similar images and references rose in price, while new copycats were quick to emerge. For example, the Kekius Maximus token, with the ticker KEKIUS, shot up in price by 1067.25% to reach $0.001474 in the past seven days, based on CoinMarketCap analytics.

The token only appears to be a day or two old, and its price soon dropped rapidly after Musk reverted to a more traditional X profile page.

Meanwhile, the PEPE cryptocurrency rose by 10.50% in the past week to reach a price of $0.00001987. While this sounds like a high jump, the asset is actually down by 3.16% in the past month. It is almost two years old, based on CoinMarketCap statistics.

Musk has in the past used tweets, photos, or meme-based references related to crypto assets that have led to coins or tokens both spiking and crashing in extremely short intervals of time.

Scammers, hackers, and other malicious actors have also used these references to quickly develop meme-based tokens meant to dupe unwary investors.