Dogecoin, a niche cryptocurrency, experienced a significant surge of over 30% on Monday. The spike came after Elon Musk, Twitter’s CEO, swapped the company’s iconic blue bird logo for the image of a Shiba Inu, which is also the emblem of the digital coin.
On Friday, Musk and Twitter’s lawyers requested that a federal judge dismiss a $258 billion lawsuit from 2022, which accused Musk of manipulating dogecoin’s price, causing it to skyrocket by more than 36,000%. After the Shiba Inu image was incorporated into the Twitter logo, Musk shared a meme about the change with his 133.5 million followers. The new logo was visible only to a select group of users, including those on Twitter’s website.
Twitter has not commented on the matter.
Musk has been promoting dogecoin for several years, and his tweets about the token, which was created as a joke in 2013, often lead to market volatility. As per CoinMarketCap.com, dogecoin currently ranks as the eighth most valuable cryptocurrency, with a market cap exceeding $13 billion.
Musk’s lawyers referred to his tweets about the coin as “innocuous and often silly” in a recent court filing. However, Musk’s support for the cryptocurrency extends beyond his social media presence, with his companies Tesla and the Boring Company also named in the lawsuit.
In December 2021, Tesla announced it would accept dogecoin for select merchandise, causing the cryptocurrency’s value to rise by over 20%. When Musk revealed in January 2022 that dogecoin payments were live, the digital coin jumped as much as 15%. Tesla continues to accept dogecoin for certain merchandise and holds digital assets, including bitcoin and dogecoin, on its books.
Musk confirmed on an earnings call last year that Tesla still possesses its dogecoin holdings and has not sold any. He has also hinted that he personally owns dogecoin. In a recent tweet featuring a photo of himself with News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch, Musk simply wrote: “Dogecoin.”
