What is ‘doge’ and why has the Twitter logo been replaced by a dog? Here’s what to know

Twitter on Monday suddenly replaced its iconic blue bird logo above the desktop home tab with doge" - the memeified shiba inu which is also the face of the cryptocurrency dogecoin."

While there's been no official explanation for why, the move came just days after Twitter CEO Elon Musk asked a judge to throw out a $258 billion lawsuit accusing him of racketeering by promoting the currency, Reuters reported.

After the change Tuesday, he shared a screenshot of an exchange last March, in which a Twitter user suggested the billionaire just buy" the app and change the bird logo to a doge." Musk replied, Haha that would sickkk."

Since the logo change on Monday afternoon, dogecoin's value has jumped nearly 26 per cent.

What we know about Dogecoin

The coin started out as a joke - two software engineers created it in 2013 to poke fun at the speculation surrounding cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and Ethereum. But, they argued, anything can be crypto, and figured they would create a digital coin with the face of the shiba inu meme on it.

Slowly, bitcoin investors got in on the joke and purchased small increments of dogecoin.

Other financial trends that emerged from the internet include NFTs, GameStop, stonks" and rocket ship emojis.

The lawsuit against Musk

Musk has long touted his appreciation for the cryptocurrency, even promoting it during his appearance last year on Saturday Night Live."

The suit by dogecoin investors accused the billionaire of running a pyramid scheme and deliberately boosting dogecoin's price by more than 36,000 per cent over two years and then letting it crash. This resulted in billions of dollars of profit at other dogecoin investors' expense, Reuters reported.

Musk's lawyers called the case a fanciful work of fiction" over Musk's innocuous and often silly tweets."

Verification and Twitter Blue

The dogecoin icon adds to other unpredictable and abrupt changes that have come from the app since Musk's $44 billion takeover in October.

The latest change comes after the app's owner set a Saturday deadline for verified users to buy a premium Twitter subscription or lose their check mark. The costs range from $8 per month for individual users to a starting price of $1,000 monthly for an organization, plus $50 monthly for each affiliate or employee account.

The only noticeable organization or individual to lose its verification, however, was the New York Times' main account.

The move also reflects Musk's ideas that the verification checks became an undeserved or corrupt" status symbol for elite personalities, news reporters and others previously granted verification without charge.

Among Twitter's main reasons for verification, before Musk bought the company, were to prevent celebrity impersonation, and to verify people who suddenly found themselves in the news and to little-known journalists as part of an effort to curb misinformation.

With files from The Associated Press and Jacob Lorinc

Manuela Vega is a Toronto-based staff reporter for the Star's Express Desk. Follow her on Twitter: @_manuelavega