Dogecoin, the digital coin created as a joke by developers in 2013, reached the cryptocurrency top 5 in 2021 and has long been promoted by Tesla and Starlink founder Elon Musk. Since his purchase of Twitter in October 2022, Musk has made a number of controversial changes to the social media platform. He seems to have taken that a step further by swapping the iconic Twitter bird for Dogecoin’s Shiba Inu!

Musk’s oft promotion of Dogecoin has created volatility for the crypto, currently the 8th most valuable, so today’s move somewhat unsurprisingly propelled the value of the coin by 30%.

The change, per CNBC, has only been visible to some users and was followed by Musk tweeting:

pic.twitter.com/wmN5WxUhfQ

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 3, 2023

What is Elon Musk up to?

This unexpected action by the CEO is potentially a kickback from a $258 billion lawsuit that accuses Musk of manipulating Dogecoin’s price. On Friday, his lawyers asked the judge in the case to dismiss it, saying Musk’s tweets were “innocuous and often silly.” Tesla purportedly owns some Dogecoin and does accept some payments in the coin, Musk himself is also a personal investor.

Musk’s Dogecoin tweets contributed to its rise to success in 2021, but so did its accumulation of cult status on Reddit. A group, that CNN describes as “not unlike the WallStreetBets group behind GameStop’s rally,” had chosen to take Dogecoin “to the moon,” and the crypto soared in value by that year by 600%.

Dogecoin’s Crypto Comedy Evolved into a $13 Billion Market Value

As per CoinMarketCap.com, Dogecoin currently has a cryptocurrency market capitalization equivalent to $13 billion and rising as more buy the coin in response to Musk’s own “joke,” today.

The entire crypto market is also up very slightly, though certainly not yet recovering from this year’s plummet downwards. We speculated recently on the question, “Is Crypto Dead?” and once again a coin in this new digital asset market shows us there’s still a lot going on!

There are a number of online betting sites that accept Dogecoin as part of their esports betting and casino options. So, if you do own or bet with Dogecoin it’s worth keeping a close eye on this coin’s value over the next few days as it is a crypto not backed by other assets and as such its value can move quickly up and just as quickly down.