Dogecoin Jumps 22% in a Week Amid Twitter Payments Speculation

The meme coin’s latest bull run may be related to the speculation that it could be involved in Elon Musk’s plans for Twitter.

By Will McCurdy

Musk has hinted at adding crypto payments to Twitter. Image: Shutterstock.

Dogecoin has shot up over 22.5% in the past week, jumping from $0.075 to $0.094, according to CoinGecko.

The rapid price increase may follow speculation that the leading meme coin will be included in potential plans for Twitter to incorporate payments, which according to a transcript originally reported by Vox, would also incorporate crypto payments.

Though unconfirmed as of yet, some have speculated that a move by the new owner to incorporate financial services into Twitter could also see Musk’s preferred cryptocurrency become involved in some way. 

In a Sunday tweet, Musk shared slides from an internal Twitter presentation. Unpacking "Twitter 2.0," he outlined several potential changes, including encrypted DMs and long-form tweets. The presentation also includes a blank space next to payments, leading some to speculate that a cryptocurrency may be used.

The latest rally now places Dogecoin eighth in the ranking of the largest cryptocurrencies by market cap. At roughly $13 billion, the cryptocurrency is larger than Polygon, Cardano, Litecoin, and Solana.

Dogecoin was created in 2013 by IBM software engineer Billy Markus and Adobe engineer Jackson Palmer, reportedly to mock coins such as Bitcoin with lofty plans of taking over the world. 

Since then, its ebbs and flows have been strongly connected to statements made by the billionaire. 

The meme coin’s initial bull run began in January 2021, when Musk first started making statements about the coin on Twitter.

The currency rocketed up 57% in just 24 hours on February 4, 2021, following the Tesla chief posting a photoshopped image from the popular Disney film The Lion King with him holding up Dogecoin’s Shibu Inu canine logo. 

Musk-related volatility has historically also pushed Dogecoin down, as well as up. 

In May 2021, when he appeared on Saturday Night Live and appeared to mock the coin, it lost around 30% of its value in the immediate aftermath. 

Aside from Musk-related speculation, the news comes as the technical foundations of the meme coin may soon begin undergoing serious improvements.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin confirmed in February this year that he would work with Dogecoin Foundation so that the coin could undergo a transition to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) from its current Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism.