Tesla CEO Elon Musk wrote a letter through his defense lawyer stating that he did not hold a Dogecoin whale wallet, nor did he push up the price of the coin and then dump $95 million of it, firmly denying the insider trading in the class action lawsuit filed by investors. In the Asian market on Monday (June 19), Dogecoin fell to $0.06199.
Musk has denied owning the whale wallets allegedly used for dodgy Dogecoin insider trading in a class-action lawsuit accusing him of manipulating the memecoin, according to the letter seen by the New York Post. He has been embroiled in a year-long legal battle over the alleged pump-and-dump scheme, and he is accused of cashing out $95 million worth of Dogecoin in an amended complaint filed in Manhattan federal court on June 7.
The case links crypto wallets allegedly owned by Musk and Tesla to transactions conducted between April 3 and April 6. During that period, Twitter, owned by Musk, replaced the social media platform’s blue bird logo with the Dogecoin Shiba Inu symbol.
Soon after the sign switch, the cryptocurrency surged 30%, from $0.07705 to $0.10109. But in the Asian session on Monday, as news broke that Musk did not hold a whale wallet, Dogecoin fell to $0.06199.
However, Musk's attorney Alex Spiro sent a nasty letter to plaintiffs' attorney Evan Spencer, questioning his claims and questioning his abilities as a lawyer.
"You specifically claim without basis that the following wallets belong to the defendant, and you are wrong," Spiro said in the June 9 letter obtained by CNN this week.
“Your sole basis for your claim is that these wallets sold Dogecoin at a time when the price was increasing, pursuant to the Third Amended Complaint,” the letter explains.
The amended complaint claims that Musk tweeted on February 10, 2021 that he purchased $28.061971 worth of Dogecoin, a number that is an obvious reference to Musk's date of birth, June 28, 1971. The complaint alleges that the transaction is also reflected in the records of the whale's wallet, which was worth more than $25 billion at its peak.
Spencer, who has to respond to the letter by August, told the New York Post that the case will be fought in court, not in the media, and that both the plaintiffs and he are more confident than ever that they will win the case; Musk declined to comment.
Created as a meme in 2013 in an effort to stop the crypto community from taking itself too seriously, the infamous meme coin has skyrocketed in popularity and price. Dogecoin is currently the ninth largest coin by market cap on Coingecko, trading at $0.06 with a staggering $8.7 billion market cap.
