[DigitalToday reporter Yoonseo Lee] It has been reaffirmed that the only cryptocurrencies Elon Musk has publicly acknowledged holding are bitcoin, ethereum and dogecoin.

On May 21, local time, blockchain outlet The Crypto Basic summarised whether Musk personally holds bitcoin as of 2026, Tesla and SpaceX's bitcoin holdings, and the actual connection to meme coins bearing his name.

The key point is that the range of cryptocurrencies actually linked to Musk is far narrower than market perception. Musk confirmed holding bitcoin, ethereum and dogecoin in 2021 through The B Word event and his social media accounts. He joked then that cryptocurrencies were an "ASCII hash string", but has never said he holds any cryptocurrencies beyond those three since then.

Bitcoin is the largest asset in terms of weight for both Musk personally and as part of corporate strategy. Musk's first recorded bitcoin holding was 0.25 BTC received from an acquaintance in 2018. He did not disclose his current holdings. While holding bitcoin, Musk has criticised its high energy use, and Tesla once halted bitcoin payments in 2021.

His company Tesla also currently holds 11,509 BTC. Its purchase price was about $386 million, and the company is cited as one of the world's major corporate bitcoin holders. A $1.5 billion bitcoin purchase in 2021 fuelled a market rally at the time, and later partial sales drew attention to the way digital assets were managed as a precedent in corporate financial strategy.

SpaceX, which has recently signalled a planned initial public offering, has also held bitcoin since 2021. Specific disclosures on the size of its holdings are more limited than Tesla's. In July 2025, bitcoin movements worth about $153.7 million were spotted from a wallet controlled by SpaceX, and it was reported to have maintained bitcoin reserves of more than $850 million thereafter.

Dogecoin is the cryptocurrency most closely associated with Musk. He has repeatedly called dogecoin a "people's cryptocurrency". He has said dogecoin started as a joke but could be more practical than bitcoin for everyday payments because of lower fees and faster block generation. Tesla has accepted dogecoin for online merchandise payments since January 2022, and it has not fully separated and stated the value of bitcoin and dogecoin in recent digital asset disclosures.

Ethereum is mentioned relatively less. The amount of ethereum Musk holds has also not been disclosed, but he has cited that ethereum is widely used in decentralised finance, non-fungible tokens and stablecoins.

Musk's Shiba Inu holdings were surprisingly "zero". In October 2021, when a user asked how much Shiba Inu he held, Musk replied, "None at all." Despite this denial, accounts and content repeatedly appear in the market claiming to know Musk's next pick.

By contrast, many tokens using Musk's name or image were described as having no real connection to him. "Eloncoin", "Musk Token" and "X coin" are tokens created by third parties.

There is also an assessment that Musk's market influence is not as strong as it once was. From 2024 to 2026 his posts on X, formerly Twitter, still drew strong online reactions, but their power to drive price swings weakened compared with the past. His posts, short replies or a meme can still move dogecoin and some meme coin prices, but analysis says his influence has become more limited as the crypto market has grown and assets have diversified.

There were also regulatory and legal issues. In June 2022, a dogecoin investor filed a $258 billion damages lawsuit, alleging Musk, Tesla and SpaceX promoted dogecoin and ran a pyramid-like scheme. Musk's side argued posts and memes were protected speech and not market manipulation, and the case was dismissed by a federal court in August 2024. The plaintiff later withdrew an appeal in November 2024.

Ultimately, as of 2026, Musk's personally confirmed cryptocurrency holdings are limited to bitcoin, ethereum and dogecoin. Tesla and SpaceX's bitcoin holdings add to that, but many other meme coins are classified as third-party issued tokens unrelated to Musk. Musk's influence remains a factor that can stir market sentiment, but in actual investment decisions, holdings and disclosures, liquidity and token structure should be weighed before celebrity names.