Tesla’s Bitcoin holdings have been unchanged for four consecutive quarters, but CEO Elon Musk has been more active on the Dogecoin front.
The Dogefather strikes again – at around 8pm (GST) last night, Twitter and Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted a meme captioned ‘Doges ftw’. Immediately after the tweet, the market cap of Dogecoin jumped by 3%, adding $320 million to its $9.64 billion cap.
Musk is a long supporter of Dogecoin and has a history of influencing the price of the original memecoin.
Doge is currently trading at $0.071090, a 3.7% increase from $0.068505 from yesterday, June 19.
In April, Twitter famously changed its blue bird logo to a Doge logo, sending Doge soaring by 30% before correcting by roughly 20% when it reverted.
Tesla’s Bitcoin holdings have remained at $184 million for four consecutive quarters, but Musk has been more active on the Doge front. Many have speculated that Doge will be the preferred payment network of Twitter as it shifts toward becoming ‘X’, the ‘everything app’.
Read more: Why Has Doge Replaced the Twitter Blue Bird?
Musk has not-so-subtly hinted at this on Twitter over the past few years, tweeting in May 2021 that he has been “working with Doge devs” to improve the efficiency of the Doge transaction system. When a Doge UI/UX designer tweeted Musk implying the theory of ‘X’, Musk replied with a simple ‘yup’.
It’s notable that Tesla only accepts Dogecoin as cryptocurrency. Although the company announced it would start accepting Bitcoin as payment for its cars in 2021, it eventually backtracked.
If speculation is true and Doge does eventually become the payment network for Twitter-based transactions, it has the potential to become one of the most traded coins on the market, despite not having the first-mover advantage that Bitcoin and Ethereum have.
Speculation aside, there is solid evidence that Twitter is leaning into the financial sector. In April, the company partnered with trading platform eToro, an online brokerage that lets users buy and sell stocks, cryptocurrencies and index funds.
Read more: Twitter, Inc is now called X Corp – what does this mean for Doge?
Musk’s consistent endorsements of Doge have however landed him in legal trouble.
On April 3rd, Musk asked a U.S. judge to drop the $258 billion lawsuit accusing him of running a pyramid scheme by publicly supporting Dogecoin. The plaintiff – Keith Johnson, a Dogecoin investor – had accused Musk of using his status as world’s richest man to “operate and manipulate the Dogecoin Pyramid Scheme for profit, exposure and amusement.”
Musk’s lawyers responded stating, “There is nothing unlawful about tweeting words of support for, or funny pictures about, a legitimate cryptocurrency that continues to hold a market cap of nearly $10 billion.”
His lawyers added that Johnson’s claims are a “fanciful work of fiction”, adding that the silliness of Musk’s tweets were far too innocuous and vague to support a legitimate fraud claim. (Said tweets: “Dogecoin Rulz” and “no highs, no lows, only Doge”)
Disclaimer: CryptoPlug does not recommend that any cryptocurrency should be bought, sold, or held by you. Do conduct your own due diligence and consult your financial advisor before making any investment decisions.
