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| Dogecoin's value has shot up by roughly 5 percent across all major exchanges in the last 24 hours |
Dogecoin's value witnessed a big boost that took it to an almost two-month high after Elon Musk bought a 9.2 percent stake in Twitter, worth around $2.8 billion (roughly Rs. 21,085 crore). Based on an US SEC filing from mid-March, the acquisition makes Elon Musk the largest individual shareholder of Twitter. Over the past two weeks, before the SEC filing became public, Musk asked his 80 million Twitter followers via a poll if they thought Twitter supported free speech and 70 percent responded "no."
While Twitter has seen a massive jump in stock price after news of Musk's common stock purchase broke, in the crypto world, the price of Dogecoin, one of Musk's favourite cryptocurrencies, appears to be benefiting from the news of Musk's newfound Twitter stake. In the last 24 hours, Dogecoin has surged by almost 5 percent, and currently stands at $0.158 (roughly Rs. 12) on Indian exchange CoinSwitch. On CoinMarketCap meanwhile, Dogecoin's value has surged 4.9 percent in the last 24 hours.
“Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy,” Musk tweeted on March 25, as part of a poll he presented to his 80 million followers. “Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?”
He added that the “consequences of this poll will be important. Please vote carefully.” A day later, Musk insinuated that he might be looking to start a new social media platform.
This may be the first time that Dogecoin has jumped based on a Musk move that is not directly related to Dogecoin. However, Musk has hyped Dogecoin many times, saying that the meme-inspired cryptocurrency is best suited for transactions and that it's the “people's crypto”.
The Tesla CEO's purchase of a stake in Twitter comes as the social media platform is exploring the possibilities of decentralisation.
In November last year, Twitter announced a new, dedicated crypto team whose chief responsibility is to explore possibilities in the decentralised apps (dApps) space. Twitter Crypto is led by Tess Rinearson, who Twitter said at the time was tasked with setting a “strategy for the future of crypto at (and on) Twitter”.
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