Elon Musk sued for insider trading in Dogecoin using publicity stunts.”

Elon Musk sued for insider trading in Dogecoin using publicity stunts.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is guilty of insider trading in Dogecoin (DOGE) against his followers, memecoin investors claimed in a lawsuit filed against the tech entrepreneur on Wednesday.

The allegations are a follow-up to a $258 billion class action lawsuit filed by the same group in June 2022, accusing Musk and his companies of causing hundreds of billions in losses to Dogecoin holders.

Elon Musk's Dogecoin Agenda

Peramended submissionOn May 31, in federal court in Manhattan, Elon Musk engaged in “deliberate market manipulation through carnival barking” by a “promoter” intended to inflate the price of Dogecoin.

These stunts also include hispublic appearancesand social media activity hyping Dogecoin since April 2019. These stunts caused the price of Dogecoin to rise by 36,000% to over $0.70 by May 2021. Today, DOGE is trading 90% below that peak.

“Musk’s pretense that the Dogecoin promotion was just a well-intentioned joke and should not be taken seriously is not credible,” the filing said, describing the tycoon as a “top robber” and his millions of Twitter followers as prey.

The lawsuit pointed out that numerous studies have already demonstrated the impact of Elon Musk's tweets on the price of Dogecoin. In fact, Musk's announcements that he would start doing soacceptDogecoin at SpaceX in 2021 and itsvisitto Twitter headquarters after acquiring the company last year, have each contributed to the price change of DOGE.

Musk again exerted his influence by changing Twitter's blue bird logo to an image of the Doge meme's Shiba Inu for three days, helpingpumpThe coin price reduced by 30%.

The filing added that Musk and Tesla traded profitably around the billionaire's "intended moves," citing blockchain records as evidence.

Specifically, the lawsuit claims to have tracked down a wallet address – DH5ya – that allegedly belonged to Musk, who became the largest single holder of Dogecoin in February 2021. This wallet then sold several million dollars worth of Dogecoin several times in April 2021.

Securities fraud?

A key part of the lawsuit is the presumption that Dogecoin is an unregistered security under existing U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission standards.

Musk was founded in 2013 by Dogecoin inventors Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer - but they remained uninvolved in the development of the project for years. Markus himself often jokes on Twitter with Elon Musk, both of whom often make light-hearted comments about crypto via Twitter.

When the original lawsuit was filed last year, Musk's lawyers said the lawsuit was trumped up. “There is nothing illegal about tweeting supportive words or funny images about a legitimate cryptocurrency that continues to have a market cap of nearly $10 billion,” they said.

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