Dogecoin rallies as Elon Musk joins Twitter board of directors

LAGOS (CoinChapter.com) — The price of the largest meme token, Dogecoin (DOGE), has reached its highest level in more than two months following the announcement of Elon Musk’s purchase of a 9.2% stake in Twitter.

DOGE price skyrocketed more than 5% this week, hitting the highest level since Jan. 14, according to data from Tradingview. The joke cryptocurrency was trading near $0.1445, representing a 1% gain on the day.

The surge took DOGE’s month-to-date and year-to-date gains to more than 24% and over 135%. Dogecoin now has a circulating supply of 130 billion DOGE coins and a market cap of $21 billion.

Today’s gain helps DOGE solidify itself as the top meme token over competitor coin Shiba Inu which dipped slightly. However, despite this increase, DOGE is still down over 80% from its all-time high of $0.74 attained in May last year.

Currently, the sixth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, DOGE’s ascent has been credited to Musk buying 73,486,938 shares of Twitter. The Tesla boss who is a supporter of DOGE has always influenced the price of the token with his tweets.

Musk’s tweets caused DOGE to rise 500% in just three days in April last year. Also, in May 2022, Dogecoin hit an all-time high of $0.73 after the billionaire announced that he would talk about the cryptocurrency on Saturday Night Live show.

DOGE also surged in December last year after he hinted that Tesla could start accepting the cryptocurrency.

Notably, Musk’s purchase which cost $3 billion, made him the majority stakeholder in the social media giant platform. He currently owns more shares than Jack Dorsey, co-founder and former CEO of the social network.

Mixed Reactions Trails Musk Twitter Stake Purchase

Meanwhile, various reactions have trailed Musk’s investment in Twitter, highlighting the impact it could have on cryptocurrency and freedom of speech.

Due to his former tweets and unfiltered manner of approach, experts opined that the move could hurt Twitter users. For example, in December, Musk put out a meme that compared CEO Agrawal to Joseph Stalin and depicted Jack Dorsey as a close associate who was later on executed.

Moreover, since his purchase, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO seems ready to effect major changes on the social network. Musk already started a poll asking Twitter users if they want an edit button via his official account. The post was followed by Chief Executive Parag Agrawal urging users to “vote carefully.”

However, Ryan Jacob, CEO of Jacob Asset Management, noted that Musk’s stake in Twitter would likely yield a positive result for shareholders. Also, Twitter’s former CEO has noted that the entrance of Musk will benefit the social media platform.

Likewise, Dogecoin co-founder Billy Markus, via his official Twitter handle, expressed delight with Musk joining Twitter’s board of directors.

Twitter Shares Rallies By 27% Following the purchase

Twitter’s cost per share rose 27.1% following Musk’s investment on Monday, closing the session at around $50. However, the social media platform stock has dropped by more than 5% at the time of publication. The firm’s stock was trading at $48 with a market valuation of over $38 billion.

It is also worth noting that Vanguard is Twitter’s second-biggest shareholder, with an 8.79% stake, according to data from Refinitiv.