Elon Musk's Meme Crypto Doge Coin Value Shoots Up After Twitter Logo Change

John Lopez, Tech Times 04 April 2023, 12:04 pm

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and Twitter as well as a vocal proponent of cryptocurrencies, has caused the value of meme-inspired cryptocurrency Dogecoin to skyrocket following a recent tweet indicating that Twitter's blue bird logo would be replaced with Dogecoin's Shiba Inu dog, which he later enacted.

According to Reuters, the move increased the meme coin's market value by up to $4 billion, causing its value to shoot from 7 cents to 10 cents around 1500 EST.

Twitter Logo Change Boosted Doge Coin Value

Dogecoin's market valuation was around $10 billion before the news, but with the addition of $4 billion, it is now the seventh-largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of $13.7 billion, according to data site CoinMarketCap.com. The shiba inu token, a Dogecoin spinoff that trades in fractions of cents, also rose 5.6% to $0.000014.

Musk and His Obsession with DogeCoin

Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency created in 2013 as a playful critique of the then-burgeoning crypto mania, lacks any underlying utility yet boasts an enormous fanbase.

Dogecoin's value more than doubled in October after Musk, dubbed the "Dogefather" by retail traders, agreed to buy Twitter for $44 billion.

Meanwhile, there are a few instances in which the billionaire has shown an unparalleled interest in the meme-inspired digital currency. For example, in May 2021, Musk announced that he would launch a SpaceX rocket christened "Doge-1" that would be paid for entirely in cryptocurrency.

And, as if that were not enough, Musk's electric vehicle company Tesla announced in January 2022 that it would begin accepting Dogecoin as payment. In the same month, the billionaire went so far as to challenge fast-food giant McDonald's to embrace the digital coin in exchange for filming himself eating a Happy Meal.

Despite his continued support for Dogecoin, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has recently asked a US judge to dismiss a massive $258 billion racketeering lawsuit.

The lawsuit alleges that Musk had been operating a pyramid scheme to promote the cryptocurrency, a claim the billionaire categorically denied.

DogeCoin Racking Up Millions

According to CoinDesk, futures tracking Dogecoin tokens have racked up $26 million in liquidations in the past 24 hours, with both longs and shorts being impacted nearly equally.

Traders on the crypto exchange OKX were the most affected, taking on $12 million in losses on Dogecoin futures positions. Open interest, or the number of unsettled futures contracts, on Dogecoin futures has also surged to over $580 million.

It is worth noting that the majority of these liquidations occurred as social media platform Twitter appeared to change its bird logo to a popular image referencing a Shiba Inu dog meme.

However, the change may only affect users in the United States and Europe, as Twitter users in India continue to see the bird logo as of Tuesday, implying that the logo update was not a global one.

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