The Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) price has stumbled after posting a strong run higher over the past week.
One Dogecoin is currently worth 7.08 US cents, down 7% over the past 24 hours.
Even with that loss, though, the Dogecoin price remains up a healthy 17% since this time last week.
By comparison, Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC), the world's top token by market cap, has gained less than 1% over the past seven days.
Why is the Dogecoin price outperforming?
Crypto markets, more broadly, staged somewhat of a recovery over the past week.
This comes as risk assets enjoyed a bounce with investors re-evaluating the likely pace of interest rate increases. Should the United States and other major economies slip into a recession, it could result in less aggressive tightening from the US Fed and global central banks.
That helped drive the tech-heavy Nasdaq to a 4% gain over the past week. And it helped put the Bitcoin price back in the green, barely, and saw the Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) price gain 5%.
So, why did the Dogecoin price outperform the top two cryptos?
The answer looks to sit with Elon Musk, the world's richest man.
Last Sunday the Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO reaffirmed his support for the meme token, which has a Shiba Inu as its mascot. Taking to Twitter, Musk wrote, "I will keep supporting Dogecoin."
When another user tweeted, "Keep buying it then," Musk responded with, "I am."
He later told Bloomberg, "I just know a lot of people who are not that wealthy who, you know, have encouraged me to buy and support Dogecoin. I'm responding to those people."
A long road back to old records
Despite the past week's welcome rally, the Dogecoin price remains down 59% year-to-date. And the token is down a painful 90% since hitting all-time highs of 73.76 US cents on 8 May last year.
