An investor in dogecoin, a cryptocurrency originally created as a joke but whose value rose and fell as Elon Musk promoted it, filed a $258 billion lawsuit on Thursday against the billionaire and his companies Tesla and SpaceX.
Keith Johnson, who says he lost money after investing in dogecoin, described himself as a “US citizen who was scammed” by what he called a “Dogecoin crypto pyramid scheme”.
Johnson requests that his complaint, filed in a New York court, be classified as a class action lawsuit on behalf of those who have suffered losses by investing in dogecoin since 2019.
Since Musk began promoting the virtual currency, investors have lost about $86 billion, Johnson estimates. His wish is that Musk reimburse investors this sum, in addition to paying double in damages: an additional 172,000 million.
The creators of dogecoin, Invented in 2013, they say it was intended as an ironic response to two great Internet phenomena: cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and the image of a Shiba Inu dog meme.
The price of dogecoin was traded in tenths of a cent for most of its existence. But its value jumped in early 2021, rising to $0.73 in May of that year, amid a buying frenzy around the GameStop saga and after humorous messages about it from Musk.
On Thursday, however, it was worth less than six cents.
Johnson said he believes Musk increased “the price, market capitalization, and trading volume of Dogecoin” through his promotion. To exemplify he included tweets from Musk, the world’s richest man who has more than 98 million Twitter followers, including one promising that SpaceX would “put a Dogecoin on the very moon.”
Johnson named Tesla, an electric car maker owned by Musk, in the lawsuit as accepting dogecoin as payment for certain derivative products. SpaceX was also included for having named one of its satellites doge.
An investor in dogecoin, a cryptocurrency originally created as a joke but whose value rose and fell as Elon Musk promoted it, filed a $258 billion lawsuit on Thursday against the billionaire and his companies Tesla and SpaceX.
Keith Johnson, who says he lost money after investing in dogecoin, described himself as a “US citizen who was scammed” by what he called a “Dogecoin crypto pyramid scheme”.
Johnson requests that his complaint, filed in a New York court, be classified as a class action lawsuit on behalf of those who have suffered losses by investing in dogecoin since 2019.
Since Musk began promoting the virtual currency, investors have lost about $86 billion, Johnson estimates. His wish is that Musk reimburse investors this sum, in addition to paying double in damages: an additional 172,000 million.
The creators of dogecoin, Invented in 2013, they say it was intended as an ironic response to two great Internet phenomena: cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and the image of a Shiba Inu dog meme.
The price of dogecoin was traded in tenths of a cent for most of its existence. But its value jumped in early 2021, rising to $0.73 in May of that year, amid a buying frenzy around the GameStop saga and after humorous messages about it from Musk.
On Thursday, however, it was worth less than six cents.
Johnson said he believes Musk increased “the price, market capitalization, and trading volume of Dogecoin” through his promotion. To exemplify he included tweets from Musk, the world’s richest man who has more than 98 million Twitter followers, including one promising that SpaceX would “put a Dogecoin on the very moon.”
Johnson named Tesla, an electric car maker owned by Musk, in the lawsuit as accepting dogecoin as payment for certain derivative products. SpaceX was also included for having named one of its satellites doge.
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