After Elon Musk’s Shiba Inu logo switch on Twitter, will memecoins make a comeback?

By Anushree Dave

Hi all, welcome back to Distributed Ledger. This is Anushree Dave, crypto reporter at MarketWatch.

Twitter changed its infamous bird logo to a Shiba Inu image, a long-running joke among retail traders and Elon Musk, resulting in a dogecoin jump to over 30% on Monday.

Musk, a longtime dogecoin enthusiast and backer, has tweeted about the token many times before. Musk, who’s been the CEO of Tesla since 2008, also allows payments with dogecoin for certain merchandise on its website, and in 2021 he jokingly called dogecoin a “hustle” on NBC’s Saturday Night Live.

But Musk’s enthusiasm for the token has come with some friction. On Friday, he reportedly asked a U.S. judge to toss out a $258 billion racketeering lawsuit accusing him of running a pyramid scheme to support dogecoin.

You can find me on Twitter at @anu__dave to share any thoughts on crypto, this newsletter, or your personal stories with digital assets.

A deeper dive into meme coins

Some analysts think the renewed hype around dogecoin will be short lived, with the coin already down 3.03% in the last 24 hours, according to CoinDesk data. Others have warned that the coin’s rally could give way to an ugly correction.

“After a record quarter of deliveries for Tesla, but a disappointing stock performance, Musk was probably looking for something safe to tweet about,” said Edward Moya, senior financial analyst at OANDA, whose coverage includes the cryptocurrency market. “This latest action in changing the Twitter logo to a Shiba Inu dog is probably just for his entertainment.”

Skeptics say the data supports the idea that the hype around dogecoin will be short-lived, instead of indicating a resurgence of the meme stock craze witnessed in 2021. Twitter did not respond to request for comment regarding whether the logo will be eventually changed back to a bird.

“The price has reached a resistance point, indicating that traders may not be able to push the price further. This pump in the price of a meme coin may suggest bullishness among retailers, but it is not indicative of a long-term trend,” said Sara Gherghelas, a blockchain analyst at DappRadar, which analyzes data of decentralized apps and crypto.

“It is worth noting that in recent months, there has been a rising trend in memes, even in the NFT ecosystem,” said Gherghelas. “What is interesting is that coins that started as memes, like ShibaINU, started as a joke but have since grown to include their own [decentralized exchanges], collection of NFTs, liquidity pool, governance token, and future plans to launch a stablecoin and metaverse. Therefore, while meme coins may experience short-lived hype, some have the potential to grow into more serious projects.”

Donald Trump NFTs

Donald Trump’s nonfungible token sales shot up 413% after his arraignment on Tuesday. The former U.S. president’s collection, which featured around 45,000 NFTs, was launched in December 2022 and sold out within 24 hours. The NFT collection also rallied last week after Trump was indicted by a grand jury over alleged hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels. But it’s still far below its peak in December with $3 million sales.

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Crypto in a snap

Bitcoin is up 1.74% this week and is trading at $28,061 on Thursday, according to CoinDesk data. Ether is up 4.79% this week, trading at $1,876.89 as of Thursday, according to CoinDesk data.

Biggest Gainers  Price  %7-day return 
Injective        $5.71  32.9% 
Dogecoin         $0.09  19.4% 
Trust Wallet     $1.28  11.8% 
THORChain        $1.58  11.4% 
Radix            $0.04  11.3% 
                        Source: CoinGecko 
Biggest Decliners  Price  %7-day return 
Stacks             $0.82  -16.7% 
Conflux            $0.37  -12.7% 
XRP                $0.50  -7.1% 
SingularityNET     $0.40  -6.9% 
Algorand           $0.21  -6.6% 
                          Source: CoinGecko 

Crypto companies, funds

Shares of Coinbase Global Inc. (COIN) went down 2.55% over the past five days to around $62.41. MicroStrategy (MSTR) gained 5.03% in the same time frame, to $293.28.

Bitcoin mining company Riot Blockchain Inc. (RIOT) is up 1.31% in the past five days to $9.26 as of Thursday. Shares of rival Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA) are up 4.53% to $8.19. Ebang International Holdings Inc. (EBON) is down 23.10% in the past five days, to $5.46.

Overstock.com Inc. (OSTK) slumped 6.20% in the past 5 days, to $18.89.

Shares of Block Inc. (SQ), formerly known as Square, are down 0.07% in the past 5 days to $68.44, as of Thursday. Tesla (TSLA) shares are down 5.20% to $185.13.

PayPal Holdings Inc.’s (PYPL) added 0.42% over the past five days, at $74.69. Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) was down 1.65% to $269.30.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) fell 5.38% from Friday to Thursday, to $92.62.

For crypto funds, ProShares Bitcoin Strategy (BITO) declined 3.68% in the past five days, to $16.75, while its counterpart Short Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITI) was up 1.10% in the same time frame to $21.11. Valkyrie Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BTF) was down 1.17%, to $10.99, while VanEck Bitcoin Strategy ETF (XBTF) was down 1.20% to $28.24 in the past week. Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) was up 0.2% at $16.19 over the last five days.

-Anushree Dave

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04-06-23 1452ET

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