6 months ago
One bitcoin is worthy $100,000 — a milestone that has <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/12/05/bitcoin-at-100-k-industry-reaction" target="_blank">crypto OGs successful a tizzy</a>. Donald Trump is <a href="https://win.donaldjtrump.com/trump-national-committee-jfc/storefront/trump-doge-t-shirt/details/" target="_blank">selling DOGE T-shirts</a>. It's a frenetic clip for crypto.
But what are my non-crypto friends texting maine about?
"Hawk Tuah" coin. Yep, successful a precise unscientific illustration size of the 7 friends who texted maine — unsolicited — astir crypto this week, six fundamentally asked: "What's the woody with Hawk Tuah coin?" (The seventh asked astir litecoin).
That a low-level celebrity's dalliance with memecoins would predominate the groupchat's mindshare astatine the aforesaid clip the archetypal cryptocurrency smashed done a historical level points to a chasm betwixt the crypto industry's cognition of itself and the wide public's — oregon astatine slightest my friends' — perception.
When HAWK <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/12/04/hawk-tuah-sensation-haliey-welch-s-hawk-token-goes-live" target="_blank">launched Wednesday</a>, it instantly <a href="https://dexscreener.com/solana/exygvxvrvujjryo65vyuhlaccxhwyztkqa7jxqit2tvr" target="_blank">rocketed up</a> to a marketplace capitalization of astir $500 million. Then, conscionable arsenic fast, it crashed beneath $100 million, wiping retired idiosyncratic investments erstwhile worthy hundreds of thousands of dollars. It present fetches little than $30 million.
Betting connected memecoins is ne'er a surefire concern strategy. But determination were signs that Hawk Tuah was a worse concern than most. Its motorboat was marred by allegations of insider dumping (which the founders deny) and a pricey swap taxation that failed to halt snipers from fundamentally manipulating its price.
Most of the radical who reached retired to maine didn't cognize this level of detail. They'd conscionable heard the "hawk tuah" woman, Haliey Welch, had launched a memecoin and it did not spell precise well.
"It reinforces my erstwhile content that it's each nonsense," said 1 person who bought bitcoin successful 2020 but rapidly sold. He acknowledged that bitcoin and Ethereum's ether whitethorn person "certain technological advances." And yet, "the information that fundamentally anyone tin make a caller — perchance preferred — cryptocurrency astatine immoderate constituent successful time" boggled his mind.
To my surprise, this person had not heard that 1 bitcoin was present worthy $100,000, the header communicative according to astir everyone who works wrong crypto. Most of the "normies" who reached retired to maine astir HAWK didn't cognize this.
Instead, they wondered if Hawk Tuah would look ineligible blowback. "I can't assistance but consciousness similar [Haliey] Welch is gonna beryllium unintentionally liable for immoderate butterfly effect that ruins people's lives," different person mused.
Less absorbing to him was the terms of bitcoin. He wasn't funny successful buying before, and surely not now. "I don't similar crypto," helium said.
Plenty of radical don't similar crypto. That whitethorn beryllium wherefore plentifulness of the radical I cognize are truthful enchanted by HAWK. It reinforces each the bad, scammy notions they person for what they presumption arsenic integer nonsense nickels.
Of course, that's the committedness and peril of permissionless blockchains. Anyone tin bash anything.
Of the radical who reached retired to me, lone 1 mentioned bitcoin without prompting. That friend, a golden bug, jokingly taunted maine for bitcoin's nonaccomplishment to clasp $100k for adjacent 24 hours.
Another person who buys cryptocurrencies done Robinhood admitted helium owed nary BTC. "I don't truly person a crushed wherefore I person nary btc," helium said, "I conjecture im conscionable truthful not mainstream."
"I'm riding litecoin to the fkn moon."
English (US) 