Twitter logo change sees man make $1.6m in Dogecoin

A trader has made more than $1.6 million in just a few minutes after a surge in the price of Dogecoin driven by Elon Musk’s Twitter activity.

A crypto trader claims to have made more than US$1.1 million (A$1.6m) from Dogecoin trades in just a few minutes this week after a sudden surge in the value of the coin driven by Elon Musk’s Twitter activity.

The cryptocurrency’s value jumped dramatically this week after Twitter, recently acquired by Musk, changed its logo from the iconic blue bird to a Shiba Inu dog — the symbol of Dogecoin.

At least one trader, a Twitter user by the name of Tree of Alpha, claims to have made a staggering profit in half an hour on Monday as a result of the change.

2/ People were mostly in disbelief, and Twitter caching didn't help because some people were still not seeing it.
A minute later, DB tweeted the new logo as well, at which point I started buying: first $3m, then $2m, and a final $3m a bit later.

Final position: $8m. pic.twitter.com/fPN4s7xQQz

— Tree of Alpha (@Tree_of_Alpha) April 4, 2023

Tree of Alpha claimed in a Twitter thread to have bought US$8 million (A$12m) in Dogecoin in three separate trades after tweets began circulating about the unexpected logo change.

“Some of the factors that made me buy so much were: The picture is the actual DOGE logo, not just a random dog. Doge needed a fresh narrative and had not been moving much for a while. The information was very fresh which made me enter early enough,” he wrote.

“Some of the factors that made me exit … were: There was still a chance of a late April Fool’s joke. I had to go take a walk on my treadmill and cook. Elon could have tweeted something debunking the whole thing like he has done before. It is a lot of money.”

Twitter changed its logo to the Dogecoin dog, causing a surge in the coin's price.

The coin is named after the often memed Shiba Inu dog.

The user said his average buying price was around $0.0815 and he exited at $0.095, resulting in a profit of more than US$1 million.

“I made $1.1 million (A$1.63m) in 30 minutes on a total $8 million position size,” he told crypto news site The Block, while declining to give his real name.

Twitter’s logo change came about after Musk, a longtime critic of Twitter before he purchased it, complained about the site and proposed launching a competitor.

“Just buy twitter,” a user responded. “Change the logo from a bird to a doge.”

The future CEO then responded, “Haha that would [be] sickkk.”

Musk resurfaced the year-old tweet on Monday, writing: “As promised.”

As promised pic.twitter.com/Jc1TnAqxAV

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 3, 2023

Musk has long endorsed Dogecoin and currently faces a lawsuit claiming he used Twitter as a “pump and dump” scheme to manipulate its price and reap profit at the expense of less influential traders.

The class action suit alleges that Musk used the social platform to boost the price of Dogecoin over several years through countless tweets and memes, before causing its price to plummet during a Saturday Night Live appearance in which he referred to the meme cryptocurrency as a “hustle.”

Musk and his companies, SpaceX and Tesla, made billions of dollars in profits while other investors suffered, the plaintiffs allege, accusing him of “falsely and deceptively claiming that Dogecoin is a legitimate investment when it has no value at all.”

Dogecoin surged by almost 30 per cent on Monday after the change.

It is still down from its peak, reached in 2021.

“Musk used his pedestal as World’s Richest man to operate and manipulate the Dogecoin Pyramid Scheme for profit, exposure and amusement,” the complaint reads.

“As a result of this fraudulent enterprise,” the suit claims, investors “have lost approximately $86 billion.”

Musk’s lawyers disputed those accusations.

“There is nothing unlawful about tweeting words of support for, or funny pictures about, a legitimate cryptocurrency that continues to hold a market cap of nearly $10 billion,” they wrote in a formal request to dismiss the suit, filed on Friday.

They maintain that Musk’s statements, such as “Dogecoin Rulz” or “No highs, no lows, only Doge,” were vague and subjective, and do not amount to “misrepresentations or omissions.”

“This court should put a stop to plaintiffs’ fantasy and dismiss the complaint,” the lawyers wrote.

Musk currently faces a lawsuit claiming he manipulated the price of the coin through years of memes and tweets. Picture: iStock.

The price of Dogecoin shot up more than 27 per cent on Monday after Twitter’s logo was changed, though it remained below its peak from 2021. The coin has since stabilised and is currently trading at A$0.14.

News.com.au contacted Twitter to inquire about the reasons behind the change and whether Musk believes it relates to the lawsuit.

Since March, Twitter’s press team has responded to media inquiries with an automated reply of the poo emoji.

Tree of Alpha, who lives in Western Europe, told The Block he started trading crypto in 2017 but the enterprise only became profitable when he began “event trading” two years later.

News.com.au contacted Twitter to inquire about the logo change, and received the poo emoji in response.

Event trading refers to buying and selling an investment according to major events — such as the Twitter logo change — rather than according to the predicted value of the product itself.

“My advice to a lot of people would be to try to achieve profit asymmetry one way or another: entering trades that have either a much higher chance of going up, or trades that have way more upside than downside,” he said.

“I do that through trading of news and events.”

The goal of event trading, Tree of Alpha said in his thread, was to enter a market within two seconds of a potentially valuable tweet or blog post.