Robinhood down as Elon Musk plugs Dogecoin on SNL

Trading platform ‘experiencing issues with crypto trading’ as Tesla CEO hosts SNL

The Robinhood trading app crashed for 30 minutes as Tesla CEO Elon Musk plugged Dogecoin during his hosting of Saturday Night Live.

During his appearance on the famed comedy show the tech billionaire joked that he was giving his mother, Maye, Dogecoin for her Mother’s Day gift.

Robinhood took to Twitter to explain that it was dealing with cryptocurrency issues as Musk continued his hosting duties on the show.

“We’re currently experiencing issues with crypto trading. We’re working to resolve this as soon as possible,” the financial trading app stated.

Musk first mentioned Dogecoin 14 minutes into the show, when he brought his mother up to join him during his opening monologue.

“I am excited for my Mother’s Day gift. I just hope that it’s not Dogecoin,” she told her billionaire son.

“It is. It sure is,” laughed Musk, with a beaming smile on his face.

And later during the Weekend Update section he was repeatedly asked by hosts Michael Che and Colin Jost to explain exactly what the cryptocurrency was.

“It is the future of currency, it is an unstoppable financial vehicle that is going to take over the world,” said Musk.

And when he explained that crypto can be traded for cash, Che said, “Oh it’s a hustle.”

“Yeah it’s a hustle,” said a laughing Musk as he shouted the Dogecoin phrase of “to the moon.”

The mentions of Dogecoin saw the cryptocurrency quickly plummet.

The price of Dogecoin was at around $0.66 before Musk started hosting the show, but after the mention it dropped by as much as 24 per cent to $0.49.

The price in Dogecoin has spiked massively over the past month, and stood at just $0.05 in April. Musk has coined himself “The Dogefather” on Twitter.

Dogecoin traders were reportedly set to watch SNL to see if his appearance would be a market-moving event.

After 30 minutes, Robinhood posted to Twitter that they were “back up and running” but that because of the “high trading volume and volatility, some customers might see some intermittent issues.”

And 14 minutes after that Robinhood announced that their cryptocurrency issues had been “resolved.”

“We’re continuing to monitor the situation, and will update you further if there are any additional issues. We’re sorry if you were impacted,” the company said on Twitter.