Dogecoin surges after Twitter accepts Musk's buyout offer

Meme coin Dogecoin surged by 25 percent on Monday after Twitter accepted Elon Musk's buyout offer

By Shashank Bhardwaj

Image: Shutterstock

As the news about Elon Musk purchasing Twitter spread, the prices of the Tesla-endorsed meme coin Dogecoin surged by over 27 percent on Monday. Twitter’s share price rose 5.6 percent by the end of the day. The meme coin had jumped from $0.12 to $0.16 at the time of writing. Musk holds 9.2 percent of Twitter, making him the company's largest shareholder.

The Twitter buyout and Dogecoin price rise have no direct correlation. But the news has attracted a lot of speculation in the cryptocurrency markets, with investors hoping that Dogecoin would find a place in Twitter’s long-term plans.

Kryotomon’s CMO, Tomar Nuni, had avered earlier this month, “The speculation is that advertisers could be able to pay DOGE for ads and other uses on Twitter. We had seen the same happening when Tesla revealed the ability to pay for its goods with DOGE. So the speculation could be around Musk’s businesses and stakeholdings starting to accept crypto, as Tesla does.”

In a tweet earlier this month, even Elon Musk had hinted at Doge as a possible payment option for Twitter Blue—the subscription-based version of Twitter with premium services. Tesla already accepts Doge as payment for its online merchandise store. He had also tweeted about working with Dogecoin developers to improve adoption and development, in another May 2021 tweet.

Dogecoin is the 10th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization and is inspired by the 2013 Doge meme. It was created as a joke cryptocurrency to mock Bitcoin’s volatility. The meme cryptocurrency gained prominence after the Tesla CEO endorsed it in a series of tweets last year. In 2021, Elon Musk was being touted as the self-proclaimed Doge father, and his tweets had quite an impact on the cryptocurrency’s price movements. In May 2021, Dogecoin rallied to its all-time high of 67 cents riding high on Musk’s posts.

In November last year, Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s former CEO, had stepped away from Twitter and is now focusing on his payments company, Block, earlier known as Square. The rechristening reflects Dorsey’s cryptocurrency and blockchain ambitions. On the other hand, Tesla has been one of the biggest corporate bitcoin buyers. Musk’s inclination toward cryptocurrencies and how he prioritizes them in the future will be a great vector in determining whether Twitter will see more crypto native features added to its platform.

Bitcoin’s censorship resistance aligns with Musk’s utopian vision of a free speech world. Musk said in a statement on Monday, “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.”

The writer is the founder at yMedia. He ventured into crypto in 2013 and is an ETH maximalist. Twitter: @bhardwajshash

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