The price of cryptocurrency Dogecoin (DOGE) rose more than 30% after Twitter changed its traditional blue bird logo to a meme image of a Shiba Inu dog.
The Shiba Inu dog is the Dogecoin logo, and Twitter chief executive officer (CEO) Elon Musk has a history of flashing the cryptocurrency’s image on social media.
On March 31, attorneys for Twitter and Musk asked a federal judge to throw out a $258 billion U.S. lawsuit that accuses the billionaire of manipulating Dogecoin’s price.
After the Twitter logo was changed to a Shiba Inu dog, Musk promoted the change to his 133 million Twitter followers.
Musk started touting Dogecoin during the pandemic and occasionally tweets about the digital token, which was created merely as a joke back in 2013.
Despite having no underlying utility or purpose, Dogecoin is now the eighth-most valuable cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of about $13 billion U.S.
Musk’s lawyers have defended his comments about Dogecoin in court, saying they are “innocuous and often silly” and not meant to pump the cryptocurrency’s price up.
In December 2021, Tesla, which Musk also runs, announced it would accept Dogecoin for some merchandise. The price of Dogecoin rose more than 35% following that announcement.
The electric vehicle maker still reportedly accepts Dogecoin as payment for some items.
Musk’s lawyers have also noted that the entrepreneur holds some Dogecoin in his personal investment portfolio.
Prior to today, the price of Dogecoin had been down 34% over the past 12 months and trading at 10 U.S. cents per token.
