News is circulating today that the SEC is looking into Elon Musks’ tweets about Dogecoin. Every time Musk has sent a tweet out in the last few weeks inferring that DOGE will ‘go to the moon’ or is ‘the future’ has unsurprisingly seen the price soar and this has caused the SEC to believe they have a reason for concern.
Zero Hedge, a financial blog, which rose to prominence in the wake of the 2008 crypto crisis broke the story.
Back in 2018, The SEC did give Musk a slap on the wrist after he confirmed on Twitter that he had put together a deal to take Tesla private at $420 a share. With this tweet, the stock soared until it was revealed that Musk was having some elaborate joke.
Musk struck a deal with the SEC after his tweets claiming he had secured funding for his company back in 2018. One term Musk appeared to agree to was that his board will approve all future tweets. However, it is quite clear that Musk appears to be very free in what he tweets and I think it’s fair to say he gets a kick out of the chaos his tweets stir.
Can The SEC Really Do Anything?
Firstly, this is nothing like the case in 2018 where Musk basically told a lie about his business for his own amusement. You can make various arguments about this ethically but these tweets would have lead to many buying the stock based on false information even if intended a joke so I for one can see where the problem may occur.
With DOGE though he is simply promoting the coin through the form of Memes. It goes without saying that his influence is having an insane impact on the price but is there a law where you can’t joke about a stock or in this case a crypto coin going to the moon?
The news does not seem to bother Musk.
I fully expect that this will die down in a few days but will watch with interest to see what reasons the SEC will give for feeling the need to investigate Musk’s involvement with DOGE. If it does indeed go further it will be fascinating to see the backlash and if it changes the landscape for how influential people can promote cryptocurrency.
Stay tuned with Dogecoin News Hub as this story develops.
