Dogecoin sees 30% rise in value after Musk replaces Twitter logo with shiba inu image

Meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin experienced a surge of over 30% on Monday after the CEO of Twitter Elon Musk replaced the platform’s blue bird logo with a picture of a Shiba Inu, which is also the symbol of the digital currency.

Musk confirmed the change via a tweet where he shared a screenshot of a year-old conversation with the caption “as promised”. In the conversation, another user suggested that Musk “just buy Twitter” and “change the bird logo to a doge.”

After the change, the value of Dogecoin surged from US$0.079 to US$0.094, reaching its highest value since November of the previous year.

Although Musk has not given a clear explanation for the alteration, some users have suggested that it could have been intended as an April Fools’ Day prank that the company failed to execute on time.

For several years now, Musk has been promoting dogecoin. He regularly posts tweets about the cryptocurrency, which was initially created as a meme token back in 2013. As a predictable result, every time Musk tweets about dogecoin, it causes a fluctuation in its value.

The Twitter logo change happened just days after Musk submitted a petition to a US court seeking to dismiss a lawsuit brought against him by Dogecoin investors who are pursuing $258 billion in damages for what they claim is a pyramid scheme.

According to a complaint cited by Reuters in June last year, the plaintiffs contend that Musk was aware of Dogecoin’s lack of value since 2019, but continued to promote the cryptocurrency, in order to profit from its trading.

“Musk used his pedestal as world’s richest man to operate and manipulate the Dogecoin Pyramid Scheme for profit, exposure, and amusement,” the complaint reportedly stated.

Musk’s lawyers have dismissed the allegations in the lawsuit, referring to them as a “fanciful work of fiction” and emphasizing that Musk’s tweets about Dogecoin were “innocuous and often silly.”

However, the lawsuit further points out that Musk’s advocacy of Dogecoin is not limited to his social media activity, but also extends to two of his other companies, Tesla and the Boring Company.

In December 2021, Tesla announced that dogecoin would be accepted as a means of payment for some of its products. Musk acknowledged the announcement on Twitter, saying that the company would “see how it goes.”

Following the tweet, dogecoin experienced a surge of over 20%. Later in January 2022, the value of the cryptocurrency increased by as much as 15% when Musk announced on Twitter that dogecoin payments were now an option.

Dogecoin is the eighth most valuable cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of more than $13 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.