After changing their name and profile picture on X social media on December 31, Elon Musk triggered an increment in the price of meme-based cryptocurrency tokens, with numerous buyers from around the world influenced by the updated profile picture of the billionaire. Musk changed his profile picture to Pepe the Frog in historical metal armor and his username to Kekius Maximus. Many people also referenced it in Gladiator Ridley Scott’s movie and far-right Meme Imagery. The CEO of Tesla Elon Musk created a buzz all over the social media platform by changing his name and profile picture and surprised his millions of followers by catching their attention. After this change, the cryptocurrency market also faced a sudden stir. Both the gaming and cryptocurrency sectors faced a ripple effect after the sudden change.
Kekius Maximus
Kekius Maximus is a blend of mythology, pop culture, and internet humor. Millions of his fans also speculate the news that Musk has been inspired by the character Maximus Decimus Meridius, Gladiator from the movie Gladiator which was released in 2000, and the Meme Frog is associated with internet subcultures. Musk repurposed Pepe with a new avatar, mixing gaming and humor. Elon Musk also made a Cryptic tweet about his post which gives an idea about his interest in video games and his hobbies. After the modification of profile picture and name, Kekius ‘ token faced a huge difference in market capitalization from $ 11.4 million on 31st December 2024 to $380 million on 1st January 2025. More than 23,600 investors are holding the tokens of ERC-20, now the value of the token has been settled to $308 million.
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Kekius Maximus token
After the updation of the profile picture and name, the value of Kekius Maximus memecoin shut up. At the end of Tuesday, the value of memecoin surged to 900%. However, at that time, it was not clear whether the move of Musk raised the share price or not. KEKIUS Whale sold his shares, which led to a drop in token price to 60% in just an hour, and made a profit of $2.3 million with a win rate of 40%.
The Kekius Moment
A perfect blending of pop culture and online culture is reflected in the combination of Pepe the Frog and the protagonist of Gladiator. The AI-generated picture of Pepe is displayed as a profile picture, getting more than 48.2 million views on X. The term Kek reflects the gaming roots and has been adopted by various online subcultures. The picture is also related to the Egyptian God of darkness, which was shown as the head of a frog. The tokens of KEKIUS have faced both centralized and decentralized changes. Gate.io, the most famous platform for transactions, faced the highest price record of $0.09274 on 31st December 2024 while the lowest price record of $0.0006923 13 days prior.
Impact of the Kekius Moment in the Market and Trading Activity
The tokens made an explosive climb after Musk’s move. The tokens were traded on every major platform including BingX, MEXE, and Uniswap. In only 24 hours 10 transactions were made of more than $425,000. The market is in great trading interest with 7,322 buyers after 3,931 sales in the last six hours. As the early investors are definitely making a profit with the rise of cryptocurrency with a score of 99/99. Thousands of shareholders have also faced losses with this move, one investor has faced a loss of $1 million.
Price Prediction by Analysts
Some analysts are also predicting that KEKIUS will achieve a 1 billion cap this year and the token price will rise to $1. Sudden increment in Kekius Maximus’s shares late in the increment of various shares like Peanut and Moo Deng with notable corrections. However, Analysts, are advising buyers to think twice after reading the terms and conditions to invest in the shares after watching the sudden rise in the price. Till now Musk has not clarified the reasons for adopting this new name. When one journalist addressed him as Kekius Maximus he replied “This will be priceless”. Other Kekius-themed memecoin have also soared over 200% after the launch. Expects believe that the unexpected gain in the Bitcoin market is a signal of returning of memecoin season.
Current market condition
This change has brought sudden surges in the market and influenced market participants getting a lot of media hype and speculative interest from people. Now the price is expected to rise upward. The followers of Musk have also become more active and waiting for his next move. As he has also not made any clarification about this change, they also want to know the reason for this movement.
Also read: Bitcoin Hits $98,740: Is $100,000 Next for the Cryptocurrency Market?
Conclusion
The master stroke by Elon Musk influenced the social media and crypto market with the huge change in the price structure. After this unexpected change, Dogecoin became one of the biggest market players with $50 billion. However, the analysis and the market watches are making the buyers alert about the risks and are asking them to review all the risks associated with the purchase of shares. The celebrity behaviour of Musk left a huge impact on social media and on the Bitcoin market.