The price of Dogecoin has dropped more than 10% today and is currently trading at $0.07 after Elon Musk’s latest Twitter poll asking if he should step down as CEO of the social media platform.
Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022
The crypto market and the broader tech industry have taken a hit recently due to recession fears and the collapse of several leading companies, including FTX.
Bitcoin, Ethereum, the S&P 500, NASDAQ, and the Dow Jones Index all fell 1-2% today. The three major indexes fell for the fourth straight day to six-week lows, according to Yahoo! Finance.
The price of the original meme currency had been inflated since the world’s richest man bought Twitter in October. On Oct. 27, when Musk officially bought Twitter, the price of dogecoin was $0.07. By Nov. 1, dogecoin was trading at $0.14, with dips and rises since then, according to CoinGecko.
Even the best price of the year for dogecoin is a far cry from what it was in May 2021, when it hit an all-time high of $0.73 before Musk’s appearance on Saturday Night Live. But by June 2022, the coin had lost more than 90 percent of its value.
Initially launched as a joke in 2013 by Jackson Palmer, Dogecoin has found an unlikely champion in Musk, who has taken to social media to sing the digital currency’s praises in recent years. Palmer – who left the project in 2015 – and Elon Musk have traded insults and jabs in the press and on social media.
My kids wrote better code when they were 12 than the nonsense script Jackson sent me.
Like I said, if it’s so great, he should share it with the world and make everyone’s experience with Twitter better. If he does, you will see what I mean.
Jackson Palmer is a tool.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 31, 2022
In June 2022, leaked messages suggested that Musk had plans to integrate a payment system with Twitter, and many speculated that he would use dogecoin since it was Musk’s preferred crypto-currency. He reportedly put those plans on hold after completing the purchase of Twitter.
Despite Musk’s love for dogecoin, his Tesla company has yet to invest in the meme currency and currently holds $218 million in bitcoin.
During the legal battle over Musk’s purchase of Twitter, several messages were revealed between Musk and others, including Jack Dorsey, Sam Bankman-Fried, then-CEO of FTX, and others about potential development and investment in Twitter.
Accurate. He set off my bs detector, which is why I did not think he had $3B.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 12, 2022
Many have questioned Musk’s leadership style when it comes to Twitter, including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who said that Elon Musk’s banning of accounts, including one that tracked the location of Musk’s private jet, would put Twitter on the “path of authoritarianism.“
Elon Musk posted polls on Twitter to get community input on various Twitter policies, including reinstating banned accounts and whether he should stay on as head of the site. Elon Musk said he would abide by the poll results and potentially leave Dogecoin in the doghouse.