A chart recounts Musk's past public endorsements of Dogecoin

Author: Grapefruit, ChainCatcher

In the early morning of April 4, 2023, the official homepage key for Twitter web users no longer featured the traditional blue bird Twitter logo, but instead was replaced with a cartoon avatar of a Shiba Inu. Musk posted on Twitter an image containing a Dogecoin emoji along with the Twitter blue bird logo. The price of DOGE surged from $0.077 to $0.102, with a 24-hour increase reaching 30%, marking a new high since December of last year.

Prior to this, Twitter had not officially announced the above changes. As of April 4, the official account still had not responded or explained this change.

However, after Twitter changed the web icon to the Dogecoin logo, leading to a rise in DOGE's price, Lookonchain monitored that the address ranked 5th in DOGE holdings transferred out 650 million DOGE at 3:48:22 on April 4, valued at approximately $61.3 million.

In response, many users speculated that, given Elon Musk's tendencies, this change to the Twitter user page featuring the Dogecoin Shiba Inu image was likely just for promotional hype, probably to drive up the price for selling. This page adjustment may be temporary, and Twitter might revert to the original little blue bird image in the future.

The basis for this view is that during the Bitcoin bull market on January 19, 2021, Musk changed his Twitter user signature to Bitcoin (BTC), causing the price to soar from $31,000 to $38,000, with a daily increase of 16%. However, shortly after, Musk deleted that signature.

Musk publicly endorses Dogecoin, questioned for profiting from DOGE price fluctuations

Musk's public endorsement of Dogecoin is no longer news in the crypto market. Since 2021, Musk has expressed his optimism about Dogecoin multiple times, calling it "the people's cryptocurrency" and his favorite "currency," and has frequently posted Dogecoin emojis. He occasionally shares content related to Dogecoin on Twitter, leading to significant fluctuations in its price.

Musk's past endorsements of Dogecoin:

(Data source: Tradingview)

April 3, 2023: The Twitter web blue bird logo was changed to the DOGE dog emoji; Musk posted on Twitter an image containing DOGE emojis and the Twitter blue bird logo.

DOGE rose from $0.076 to $0.105, with a daily increase of over 30%.

October 28, 2022: Musk announced the completion of his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter.

Within 7 days, DOGE surged from $0.06 to a high of $0.158, with a weekly increase of 163%, before falling back to $0.07.

June 21, 2022: Musk announced that SpaceX would also accept DOGE payments.

DOGE rose from $0.058 to a high of $0.069, with a daily increase of 11.7%, then dropped to $0.063.

April 10, 2022: Musk suggested that Twitter Blue subscription fees could potentially be paid with DOGE.

DOGE rose from $0.014 to $0.015, with a daily increase of 10%, before quickly falling back to $0.1.

January 14, 2022: Announced support for purchasing Tesla merchandise with DOGE.

DOGE rose from $0.16 to $0.2148, with a daily increase of 32%, then dropped to $0.11.

May 10, 2021: Musk appeared on the American variety show "Saturday Night Live," where he admitted that the cryptocurrency Dogecoin (DOGE) is a scam. DOGE fell from $0.7 to $0.45, dropping over 34% at one point.

April 15, 2021: Musk posted an image of a dog howling at the moon.

DOGE skyrocketed from $0.15 to $0.45, with a daily increase of 238%. It continued to rise, reaching a peak of $0.73 on May 3, 2021.

February 24, 2021: Musk posted an image of Dogecoin landing on an alien planet.

DOGE surged from $0.043 to $0.06, with a daily increase of 37%.

February 4, 2021: Musk tweeted, "You don’t need to be a millionaire to own it, Dogecoin is the people’s cryptocurrency."

DOGE rose from $0.031 to $0.058, with a daily increase of 90%.

January 28, 2021: As WSB concepts (retail investors battling Wall Street short sellers) were heating up, Musk posted a fictional magazine cover titled "Dogue."

DOGE surged from $0.014 to $0.08, with a daily increase of 404%.

Because Musk's every mention of Dogecoin leads to significant price fluctuations, with sharp increases followed by returns to original levels, many users suspect that Musk is profiting from DOGE's price volatility, claiming "DOGE is Musk's ATM; whenever he needs money or Tesla is losing, he shouts DOGE."

Users have previously sued Musk for manipulating Dogecoin

Although users have long been accustomed to Musk's public endorsements of Dogecoin, some have expressed dissatisfaction, believing that Musk is using his position to manipulate the Dogecoin scam for profit.

In June of last year, a "Dogecoin" investor, Keith Johnson, filed a lawsuit against Musk and his companies Tesla and SpaceX, accusing Musk of knowing that Dogecoin had no value since 2019 but still falsely and deceptively claimed on Twitter that Dogecoin was a legitimate investment, promoting it and deliberately inflating its price for profit, which led to significant losses for investors as Dogecoin's price rapidly declined. He argued that Musk was operating and manipulating a pyramid scheme with Dogecoin to gain profits, increase exposure, and entertain himself.

Keith Johnson is seeking $86 billion in damages, claiming this is the amount lost since Musk began buying and promoting Dogecoin in 2019, plus triple damages, totaling $258 billion. He also requested that his lawsuit filed in a New York court be classified as a class action to represent those who have suffered losses from investing in Dogecoin since 2019.

On March 31, Musk requested a U.S. judge to dismiss the $258 billion lawsuit.

Musk's lawyer stated in a complaint filed in Manhattan federal court that Keith Johnson's accusations against Musk's harmless and often silly tweets are works of fantasy. He also noted that the investor never articulated how Musk intended to deceive others or how he concealed risks, only using vague tweets like "Dogecoin" and "No highs, no lows, only Doge" to accuse him of fraud.

The lawyer argued that posting supportive statements or amusing images about a legitimate cryptocurrency with a market value of nearly $10 billion on Twitter is not illegal.

Additionally, Musk stated in media interviews that he never told people to invest in cryptocurrencies, and the reason he is willing to support Dogecoin is due to the influence of many people who are not that wealthy, who encouraged him to buy and support Dogecoin, which he chose to do.