Elon Musk, back on Twitter, turns his support to Dogecoin

FILE PHOTO: SpaceX founder and chief engineer Elon Musk looks at his mobile phone during a post-launch news conference to discuss the SpaceX Crew Dragon astronaut capsule in-flight abort test at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. January 19, 2020. REUTERS/Joe Skipper/File Photo

LONDON (Reuters) - Cryptocurrency Dogecoin surged more than 50% on Thursday after billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk tweeted his support for it, two days after he said he was to take a break from Twitter "for a while".

Dogecoin jumped to $0.05798 according to data on blockchain and cryptocurrency website Coindesk. Musk first tweeted "Doge" and immediately followed it up with "Dogecoin is the people’s crypto".

The Tesla chief's tweets about certain companies and cryptocurrencies have sent their prices soaring in recent weeks. Shares in GameStop, Etsy and CD Projekt have jumped following comments on his Twitter account about them.

In the crypto world, him putting a "#bitcoin" tag on his Twitter bio sent the most popular currency flying last Friday. He has since taken the tag off.

Meanwhile, rival cryptocurrency ethereum is also on a record setting spree as investors buy it before the launch of ethereum futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange next week.

Ethereum rose to record high of $1,698.56 before giving up some of those gains to trade 2.7% lower in early london trading. Bitcoin, the most popular crypto currency, also fell 1.2% to $37,184.

Cryptocurrencies are gaining traction with more mainstream investors. The euphoria boosted the total market value of all cryptocurrencies above $1 trillion for the first time earlier in January.

(Reporting by Thyagaraju Adinarayan in London, additional reporting by Stanley White; Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Rachel Armstrong)