The most consequential characters that Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk played during his Saturday Night Live hosting gig over the weekend were not Wario and a murderous priest. Far more important: his two-minute appearance as a cryptocurrency expert named Lloyd Ostertag during “Weekend Update,” as well as his monologue, in which he played himself. In both cases, he mentioned Dogecoin. By the end of the night, the price of the meme-inspired cryptocurrency had fallen by about 20 percent. Advertisement Musk refers to himself as the “Dogefather,” thanks to his repeated promotion of, and evident influence over, Dogecoin, the price of which has soared since the beginning of the year. His enthusiasm for Bitcoin, too, has coincided with the latest run-up in the cryptocurrency’s price, which was nudged higher in January when Tesla bought more than a $1 billion of the cryptocurrency and later said it would accept it as payment for cars. That changed on Wednesday when Musk announced a sudden reversal of that policy, apparently causing Bitcoin’s price to tumble. In both the Dogecoin and Bitcoin cases this week, we saw just how much influence Musk holds over popular cryptocurrencies, and why that might be a problem.