Reading the Elon Musk ‘tea leaves’ — Is Dogecoin coming for Twitter?

A subtle change in Elon Musk’s Twitter bio after his platform’s rebrand to “X” has again fanned the flames of speculation that Dogecoin (DOGE) may have a future on the platform.

On July 25, eagle-eyed Twitter (now X) users began pointing out that Elon Musk’s profile location now sports both an “X” and a “D” — with X referencing Twitter’s new branding, while D has been interpreted to mean Dogecoin, a memecoin he has been publicly supportive of in the past.

Anyone else notice the Dogecoin (Ɖ) symbol in Elon Musks location pic.twitter.com/Y1OGT42hD2

— Morgan (@Helloimmorgan) July 24, 2023

Other observers, such as Real Vision CEO Raoul Pal, came to a similar conclusion, albeit with different reasoning.

In a July 25 tweet, Pal said Musk would most likely use Dogecoin to make global payments for creators on the platform, noting that the eccentric billionaire already “owns a big chunk anyway” and “he likes it.”

Two things Ive said when Elon bought “X”:

Elon bought it for the AI, and the free speech angle is to give it an unbiased model. He needs the AI to train the Optimus robot.

He will use crypto to be able to make global payments for creators etc. My guess is he uses Doge. 1/

— Raoul Pal (@RaoulGMI) July 24, 2023

When asked why Musk wouldn’t create his own platform-specific token for these payments, Pal suggested that Dogecoin could help Musk get around securities laws, giving him “zero execution risk.”

Twitter’s rebrand to X came with little warning on July 24, officially making the crossover at 10 am UTC. Musk’s reference to Dogecoin and the resulting speculation managed to score a small price gain for the memecoin, which rose as high as 5%, according to data from TradingView.

It is currently trading at $0.07, up 9.5% over the last seven days.

Related: Elon Musk to rebrand Twitter to X, but Crypto Twitter has other ideas

In emailed comments to Cointelegraph, eToro market analyst Josh Gilbert said that while the rebrand may provide a short-term rally for Dogecoin, Musk’s move could also yield significant impacts for the crypto market in the long term.

“It does have implications for crypto in the short-term as it moves markets. But it’s in the long-term as Musk looks to build out payment networks using his own platform that could soon compete with the likes of Ethereum, Bitcoin or others,” Gilbert explained.

“While the market reads the tea leaves of Musk’s choices, it’s better for investors not to become distracted by short-term events and focus on the longer and wider trends,” Gilbert said.

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