Mooners and Shakers: Dogecoin dips as Elon Musk considers stepping down as Twitter CEO

The price of Dogecoin (DOGE) is in the dog house, and it’s quite possibly, once again, because of that man Elon Musk.

The Tesla/SpaceX/Twitter CEO appears likely to be stepping down from his head position at the social-media platform after posting the following poll:

Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022

More than 17.5 million people have voted, with more than 57 per cent opting for him to pack up and head back to Tesla HQ.

Since taking over Twitter, Musk has copped heavy criticism regarding certain policy changes, such as the suspension of certain accounts belonging to journalists allegedly stalking the billionaire. The American Civil Liberties Union, for instance, stated that Musk and Twitter was setting “a dangerous example”by discouraging freedom of information.

As for DOGE, Musk’s favourite cryptocurrency, it’s double-digits dumped overnight (-10.6%). The meme coin had been surging earlier in the month based on the idea/hope that it would be prominently integrated into the Twitter platform as a payments option. That could still play out, although there have also been rumours of a separate “Twitter Coin” that could instead be used for that purpose.

Meanwhile, an interesting candidate or two for the Twitter CEO role have put up their hands. Edward Snowden, the NSA-whistleblowing American and naturalised Russian computer scientist, for instance, would like to be paid in Bitcoin for the role.

I take payment in Bitcoin. https://t.co/wW0Qa9NxWi

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) December 19, 2022

Not sure how Snoop Dogg would like to receive his salary. But it makes for an interesting guess.

Spliffer pic.twitter.com/X62GsIeU2e

— Cope (it’s, over) (@Timccopeland) December 19, 2022

Top 10 overview

With the overall crypto market cap at US$823 billion, down 2.4% since this time yesterday, here’s the current state of play among top 10 tokens – according to CoinGecko.

While DOGE is clearly the worst performer in the majors over the past day, the rest of them aren’t exactly showing much strength, either.

“FUD”, and perhaps genuine cause for concern, is affecting the crypto market and its overall sentiment right now. The FTX “contagion” likely still has a way to play out, but exactly where, and how dramatically, are the questions.

Here’s something we didn’t know. Jo Johnson, the brother of former British PM Boris Johnson, has since September been an advisor to a crypto firm called Bitfinity – based in the UK and part of the Binance group.

Anyway, “Lord Johnson of Marleybone” as he’s also apparently known, just resigned from that position and was keen to stress that he no longer has any role with it or any related entity. Perhaps this is insignificant news, but it’s just something else to add to the mix.

Binance has been experiencing hefty withdrawals of funds from customers over the past week, but the firm’s CEO, CZ, has been seeking to allay fears of any instability.

As Capriole Fund founder Charles Edwards points out, though, rumours alone can be particularly damaging in the space. In reference to Binance FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt), he wrote: “I haven’t seen anything backed by data that is legitimately concerning, but when fear is great enough, it doesn’t matter.”

This FUD is really bad for the industry. I haven’t seen anything backed by data that is legitimately concerning, but when fear is great enough, it doesn’t matter. If current withdrawal rates continue, expect more exchanges to go down – not from poor practices – but bankruptcy.

— Charles Edwards (@caprioleio) December 17, 2022

Grayscale planning 20% return to GBTC investors?

In other news, according to various mainstream media reports, the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (owned by the Digital Currency Group) is considering a tender offer that would see a return of investor capital representing 20% of the massive US$10.7 billion trust.

And this would apparently be in the likely event that the SEC continues to block Grayscale’s plans to convert its trust to a spot ETF.

There seem to be concerns about what a 20% sell-off of GBTC, which holds more than 643k BTC, would mean for an already depressed crypto market. That said, details about how the funds return would actually work, remains to be seen.

Meanwhile (as reported by The Block’s Frank Chaparro, below) Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein said:

Grayscale CEO: “Grayscale products, including GBTC, remain safe, secure, and unencumbered.”

“We remain steadfast in our belief that the conversion of GBTC to an ETF is in the best interest of investors, and we remain 100% committed to that endeavor.”

— Frank Chaparro (@fintechfrank) December 19, 2022

Uppers and downers: 11–100

Sweeping a market-cap range of about US$5.56 billion to about US$294 million in the rest of the top 100, let’s find some of the biggest 24-hour gainers and losers at press time. (Stats accurate at time of publishing, based on CoinGecko.com data.)

DAILY PUMPERS

• XDC Network (XDC), (market cap: US$357 million) +10%

• ImmutableX (IMX), (mc: US$315 million) +2%

• Bitcoin SV (BSV), (mc: US$873 million) +1%

DAILY SLUMPERS

• Toncoin (TON), (market cap: US$3.3 billion) -15%

• Trust Wallet (TWT), (market cap: US$610 million) -14%

• Chain (XCN), (mc: US$506 million) -12%

• Chiliz (CHZ), (mc: US$502 million) -10%

• The Sandbox (SAND), (mc: US$680 million) -9%

Around the blocks

Some randomness and pertinence that stuck with us on our morning moves through the Crypto Twitterverse…

The failure of FTX is not a failure of crypto, it is a failure of centralization.

DeFi is the point. pic.twitter.com/TuamGCPcba

— Tom Emmer (@RepTomEmmer) December 19, 2022

That’s one hell of a 180 by the Nigerian government. pic.twitter.com/CXYF02dKJL

— Coin Bureau (@coinbureau) December 19, 2022

This crypto contagion is good for crypto.

In the short term, people will get hurt badly & I’m sorry to those that have been.

But it will weed out bad actors & broken business models.

In 3 years, no one will remember Block-Fi, Luna or Celsius.

We’ll come back stronger.

— Ben Simpson (@bensimpsonau) December 19, 2022