Bitcoin soared by more than $5,000 in a matter of minutes on Friday, after Tesla founder and world’s richest man Elon Musk added the BTC symbol to his Twitter page.

According to data from Cointelegraph Markets and Tradingview, BTC/USD increased to $38,000 as Musk began to publicly promote Bitcoin – the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation.

As reported by Cointelegraph, Musk had previously boosted the price of numerous cryptoassets, namely Dogecoin (DOGE) with just a series of tweets.

Moreover, DOGE, along with GameSpot and AMC stocks soared this month thanks to Reddit, with the subsequent regulatory retaliation causing chaos and boosting cryptocurrency's reputation as an independent investment.

Musk’s Twitter page simply said #bitcoin, with no further explanation, reports Bloomberg.

A typically cryptic tweet followed on Musk’s page: "In retrospect, it was inevitable.”

The billionaire entrepreneur, who has 43.7 million followers on Twitter, has a record of making market-moving comments on the site, says a Live Mint report.

On Friday, BTC/USD reversed at $37,000 to trade marginally lower, still remaining in an established corridor. As Musk’s followers saw his Twitter update, the messages of support for Bitcoin ensued.

"Got em," said Robert Breedlove, author of "Thank God for Bitcoin.”

In addition, Abra CEO Bill Barhydt stated: "Elon has discovered interplanetary money. Buckle up."

In December, Elon Musk enquired about converting "large transactions" of Tesla's balance sheet into Bitcoin in a Twitter exchange with Microstrategy CEO, Michael Saylor.