Elon Musk, the Tesla billionaire and Twitter owner, has asked a judge to throw out a $258 billion lawsuit accusing him of trying to pump the dogecoin price.
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Dogecoindogecoin , a meme-based cryptocurrency originally created as a “joke,” has surged into the crypto top ten over the last couple of years, helped by the backing of high-profile investors and social media influencers such as Musk and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.
The dogecoin price has leaped almost 10% since a Friday evening filing by Musk’s lawyers, calling the lawsuit brought by dogecoin investors a “fanciful work of fiction.”
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“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,” Musk’s lawyers said, dismissing the suggestion dogecoin is an unregistered security. “This court should put a stop to plaintiffs’ fantasy and dismiss the complaint.”
The dogecoin price was catapulted into the crypto top ten in early 2021, peaking during Musk’s appearance on U.S. comedy sketch show Saturday Night Life in which he called dogecoin “a hustle.”
Musk has previously said he personally owns some dogecoin, along with rival cryptocurrencies bitcoin and ethereumethereum, and has begun accepting dogecoin for payment at his rocket company SpaceX and electric car company Tesla.
In 2021, Musk said he wanted to help “upgrade” dogecoin to make it the world’s currency and has continued to tease the idea of adding dogecoin support to Twitter after he bought the social network in November last year.
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A lawyer working on behalf of the dogecoin investors hit back, telling Reuters: “We are more confident than ever that our case will be successful.”
The lawsuit accused Musk of driving up dogecoin’s price “more than 36,000% over two years and then letting it crash,” using “his pedestal as world’s richest man to operate and manipulate the dogecoin pyramid scheme.”
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