Twitter users were stunned on Monday when the Dogecoin cryptocurrency logo appeared at the top of the site.
The Twitter bird logo normally seen at the top of the desktop has been replaced with an image of a Shiba Inu dog, the “meme” symbol of the Dogecoin cryptocurrency.
Cryptocurrency was invented in December 2013 by software developers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer as a competitor to Bitcoin.
Here’s what you need to know.
Why is there a dog on Twitter?
Mr. Musk did not explain the reason for the logo change, though some users have suggested it may have been an April Fool’s joke about the company not being able to roll out the logo on time by the first of the month.
The price of Dogecoin rose by 30 percent after the logo appeared.
Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency based on a surprised Shiba Inu meme that went viral in 2013.
Invented by software engineers Billy Marcus and Jackson Palme, the goal was to create a peer-to-peer digital currency that could reach a wider demographic than bitcoin.
Dogecoin lawsuit
The Twitter logo change comes just days after Musk petitioned a US court to dismiss a $258 billion (£206 billion) lawsuit against him from Dogecoin investors who accused him of using a pyramid scheme to operate.
Investors accused Mr. Musk, the second richest person in the world according to Forbes, of deliberately pushing the price of Dogecoin over 36,000 percent over two years and then crashing it.
They said it generated billions of dollars in profits at the expense of other Dogecoin investors, despite the fact that Mr. Musk knew the currency had no intrinsic value.
Investors also pointed to Mr. Musk’s appearance on NBC’s “Weekend Update” segment on Saturday Night Live, where he posed as a fictitious financial expert and called Dogecoin “a hustle”.
During an evening hearing in federal court in Manhattan, lawyers for Mr. Musk and his electric car company Tesla Inc called the Dogecoin investor lawsuit “a fabrication” because of Musk’s “harmless and often silly tweets” about Dogecoin.
Lawyers said the investors never explained how Musk planned to swindle anyone or what risks he was hiding, and that his statements such as “Dogecoin Rulz” and “no highs, no lows, only Doge” were too vague to talk about support. deception.
In a footnote, the lawyers also dismissed investors’ claim that Dogecoin is considered a security.
Investor attorney Evan Spencer said in an email: “We are more confident than ever that our case will succeed.”
The $258 billion loss is three times the estimated decline in Dogecoin’s market value in the 13 months prior to the lawsuit.
The non-profit organization Dogecoin Foundation is also the defendant and is trying to dismiss the lawsuit.
Source: I News
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