Elon Musk's Lawyer to Lead 'Official' Dogecoin Treasury

The Dogecoin Foundation’s commercial arm—House of Doge—is teaming with publicly traded cleaning products firm CleanCore Solutions to create a new Dogecoin (DOGE) treasury.

It’s being branded the first “official” DOGE treasury, due to its connection to the Dogecoin Foundation—and Elon Musk’s personal lawyer, Alex Spiro, is becoming the firm’s chairman of the board of directors.

As part of the partnership, CleanCore (ZONE) has entered a securities purchase agreement for a $175 million private investment in public placement (PIPE), which will be used to fuel its DOGE treasury. Pantera, GSR, and FalconX are among the firms that participated in the PIPE. House of Doge and financial institution 21Shares will advise the treasury moving forward.

“This is the first foundation-backed treasury strategy for Dogecoin, and it’s designed to do more than just hold DOGE,” Marco Margiotta, CEO of House of Doge and newly appointed CIO of CleanCore, told Decrypt. Margiotta will be joined on the board of directors by Dogecoin Foundation director and House of Doge CTO Timothy Stebbing.

“The treasury will enable governance, and institutional-grade reporting and the exploration of staking-like yield opportunities,” Margiotta added. “This foundation will help build trust with investors, Dogecoin holders, exchanges, and businesses who might integrate Dogecoin for payments or tokenization.”

Shares of ZONE dropped nearly 53% to $3.23 by the close of trading Tuesday, following news of the firm’s treasury plans. Even with the drop, ZONE is up about 145% since the start of the year.

Elon Musk has been closely associated with Dogecoin for years, with the Tesla and SpaceX owner’s social media posts and public comments often impacting the price of DOGE.

Spiro previously defended Musk against a $258 billion lawsuit that Dogecoin holders filed against the billionaire, alleging that he intentionally manipulated markets. The case was dropped last November. Fortune first reported last week that Spiro and House of Doge were working to establish an “official” Dogecoin treasury company.

So what made CleanCore the ideal company to launch a Dogecoin treasury?

“Innovation and disruption of the status quo is part of CleanCore’s ethos, and House of Doge was exploring how to anchor Dogecoin in a public company vehicle that could set the standard for institutional credibility,” Margiotta said.

House of Doge was formed to bolster global adoption of the world’s leading meme coin, having previously created a strategic reserve of the token for liquidity purposes and helping place the token’s iconic Shiba Inu mascot on an Indy500 racecar. 

DOGE is down 0.1% in the last 24 hours, but up about 117% in the last year of trading. Even so, Dogecoin remains 71% off its 2021 all-time high price of $0.73.