Srinagar: A meme-inspired cryptocurrency’s price jumped on Tuesday after Elon Musk changed the bluebird logo of Twitter to a dog associated with the digital token.
The swap happened despite the mogul being sued over his previous promotion of the coin.
His decision to change the logo to a Shiba Inu dog, whether permanent or another short-lived joke, caused the price of dogecoin to surge by more than 25 per cent, from below US$0.08 to more than US$0.10.
The Twitter chief has 133 million followers and has long used the platform for self-promotion and humour, occasionally also promoting dogecoin, a highly volatile cryptocurrency initially created as a joke.
Musk has also floated dogecoin as the basis for e-commerce payments, with observers wondering if the tycoon will use his purchase of Twitter to build an “everything app”, similar to China’s WeChat, that offers a wide range of services.
The SpaceX owner’s embrace of dogecoin has landed him in legal trouble – he is being sued for US$258 billion by an investor who claims he lost massive amounts of money because of Musk’s activities, though the billionaire has dismissed those claims.
In a filing to a New York court on Friday, Musk’s legal team called the suit “a fanciful work of fiction” that “must be dismissed in its entirety with prejudice”. “There is nothing unlawful about tweeting words of support for, or funny pictures about, a legitimate cryptocurrency,” the filing added.
Musk had bought Twitter in October last year for US$44 billion and has since slashed the workforce, introduced paid-for accounts and reinstated banned users including former president Donald Trump.
