Dogecoin: Why Elon Musk changed Twitter's logo to an image of 'the people's crypto'
Back in 2013, as leading cryptos including Bitcoin and Ethereum moved further into the mainstream, Dogecoin was created by software engineers Billy Marcus and Jackson Palmer to poke fun at crypto and the wild speculation in cryptocurrencies at the time.
On Monday, Twitter's traditional blue bird logo was replaced by an image of a shiba inu dog, an image well known across online crypto spaces.
The new Twitter icon is not just any shiba inu, with the photo portraying the logo of cryptocurrency, Dogecoin, an asset which Twitter owner, Elon Musk has a long, complex relationship with.
Back in 2013, as leading cryptos including Bitcoin and Ethereum moved further into the mainstream, Dogecoin was created by software engineers Billy Marcus and Jackson Palmer to poke fun at crypto and the wild speculation in cryptocurrencies at the time.
In 2021, Dogecoin gained an almost cult-like status across online spaces including the famous Reddit page, WallStreetBets, the same subreddit responsible for the meteoric rise of GameStop's stock price.
What started off as a parody quickly followed Bitcoin and Ethereum into the mainstream, led, in part, by Musk.Â
By 2022, however, the crypto market crash prompted by rising interest rates saw the price of Dogecoin fall dramatically to just $0.05.
During this time, prior to Musk mounting what ended up being a successful bid to buy Twitter, the Tesla CEO tweeted asking what should be done after claiming the social media site was "failing to adhere to free speech principles," which "fundamentally undermines democracy."
In response, a user by the name @WSBChairman tweeted, "just buy Twitter," following up with "and change the bird logo to a doge."
"That would be sickkk," Elon replied.Â
Fast forward to Monday, the now Twitter chief executive tweeted a screenshot of the interaction from the previous year, captioning it, "As promised."
As promised pic.twitter.com/Jc1TnAqxAV
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 3, 2023
Now the second richest man in the world according to Forbes latest billionaire rankings published this week, Musk is worth $180bn, taking over as head of Twitter in October 2022 after being sued by the social media site for attempting to back out from the sale. Musk now owns an estimated 74% of the company.
Despite Musk controlling Twitter for almost six months, the changing of the traditional bird to the Dogecoin icon only this week has prompted questions as to the chief executive's timing.
In June 2022, Musk was sued for $258bn after being accused of racketeering and running a pyramid scheme to inflate the price of Dogecoin.
In a complaint which was filed in federal court in the south district of New York last year, plaintiff Keith Johnson said Musk touted Dogecoin and drove up its price, only to then let it tumble.
The complaint also said Dogecoin's selloff began when Musk hosted 'Saturday Night Live,' where he played a fictitious financial expert, calling Dogecoin "a hustle."
In addition to his SNL reference, Musk has also posted a series of tweets about the crypto, including two from 2021 that read, "Dogecoin is the people's crypto," and "No highs, no lows, only Doge" as well as posting "Dogecoin rulz" in 2019.
Just last week, Musk's legal team filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming that there was "nothing unlawful" about the tweets.
With Twitter's icon changed just days after Musk's legal teams filed to dismiss the CEO's racketeering lawsuit, spectators have suggested that Musk is trolling those involved with the case.
Others added that it may have been an April Fools Day joke that Twitter was not able to bring in on time for April 1st.
Since replacing the site's blue bird, Dogecoin's price rose by more than 30% to 10.2 cents from around 7.7 cents.
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