The price of the dogecoin cryptocurrency rose from $0.08 (€0.07) to more than $0.10 (€0.09) on Tuesday, a rise of over 20% triggered by what seems to be a joke on the part of Elon Musk.

On Monday, Twitter owner Elon Musk changed the social media platform's logo from a blue bird to an image of a Shiba Inu dog.

The dog breed also serves as the logo of dogecoin.

Following the change, Musk tweeted an image of a Twitter conversation from March 26, 2022 where he responded positively to the suggestion to make the platform's logo a Shiba Inu image.

Musk, who is also the owner of Tesla and SpaceX, has 133 million followers on Twitter.

What is 'dogecoin'?

Memes involving Shiba Inu dogs began to become popular in 2013 on forums like Reddit and 4chan. The jokes involved images of the dog breed accompanied by dialogue deliberately written in broken English. The dog depicted in the meme is referred to as "doge."

The cryptocurrency launched as a joke later that year, remaining largely without value for years.

In May 2021, the digital token's value jumped to $0.73 after Musk suggested his automotive firm Tesla could accept dogecoin as payment. Investors have accused Musk of manipulating the value of the token in what is known as a "pump and dump" scheme.

Musk claims that he supports the cryptocurrency but does not manipulate its value for personal gain.

He is being sued for $258 billion by an investor who says he lost a large amount of money due to Musk's activities, a claim which the billionaire denies.

Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022. He has since laid off thousands of employees and introduced premium accounts in a bid to bring in revenue.

The billionaire also reinstated a number of previously banned accounts following the takeover, including that of former US President Donald Trump.