The Top 10 Crypto Memes

Nicolas Cary
@blockchain
Published in
6 min readSep 16, 2020

--

What are the most popular crypto memes?

Internet memes are those viral images you’ll find on social media. They also allow us to poke fun at ourselves and just about anything or anyone else. Meme’s have played a huge role in helping increase crypto adoption and some memes have even made it into the mainstream zeitgeist. They can be fun ways for us to communicate the concepts, philosophies and tenants of crypto to a wider audience.

We put together the top 10 crypto memes of all time. We hope you enjoy the list! Counting backwards…

10. Crypto Traders.

Everyone has an opinion about crypto traders; from mothers, to politicians and even crypto enthusiasts ourselves. An oldie but goodie:

9. Lambo Day.

Bitcoin and crypto users love talking about fast cars and how the price of bitcoin will go “To the moon!!! ┗(°0°)┛.” There’s even a funny Reddit user that shows up all the time to spread good karma if the price is going up. Since the very beginning of Bitcoin, enthusiasts have predicted that due to the supply and demand dynamics, one day the price of one Bitcoin could equal the value of a Lamborghini. We call this day, Lambo Day.

8. Blue pill and Red pill

There are a lot of Science Fiction fans in crypto. After all, wouldn’t money be digital in the future? In one of the most iconic scenes from the Matrix Trilogy, Neo decides to take the “Red Pill” and learn the unfortunate truth that his whole reality is based on a lie. Almost everyone in crypto talks about “Falling down the rabbit hole” which is a meme in and of itself and a nod to Alice in Wonderland. In crypto, taking the Red Pill refers to your first plunge into thinking about the future of money, and how crypto can help bring our dependence on banks and the legacy financial system to an end.

7. Rekt

A lot of early crypto adopters, “OGs” were prolific gamers. In fact, the infamous exchange, Mt. Gox was a venue for trading Magic The Gathering cards. Getting “Rekt” is a nod to gamers who would “wreck” or “own” someone in a game, usually by severely beating them. In crypto, it generally refers to ending up on the wrong side of a trade and losing a huge amount of money. Multiple twitter bot accounts track large liquidations and broadcast their outcomes like @BXRekt.

6. Stack Sats.

The smallest unit of a dollar is a penny and if you save up a lot of pennies, they’ll add up! A satoshi is the smallest unit of a bitcoin, equivalent to 100 millionth of a bitcoin. Just like dollars, bitcoins can be split into smaller units to ease and facilitate transactions of different amounts. The “satoshi” was named after the founder, or founders, of bitcoin, known as Satoshi Nakamoto. “Stacking sats” refers to collecting as many satoshi’s as possible.

5. Money printer go Brrrrr.

This meme combines a critical perspective of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy with the internet’s love affair of the A-10 Warthog’s 30 mm hydraulically driven seven-barrel Gatling-style autocannon. Which sounds like a Brrrrrrrrrrrr when fired.

Bitcoin has been called “Digital Gold” and for many, a reason why it’s so appealing as an investment or store of value is because of its limited supply and fixed inflation schedule. There will only ever be 21 million bitcoin, with fewer being mined into circulation after each halving event. You can keep track of the total supply on the Blockchain.com Block Explorer here.

In contrast, the dollar, and all fiat currencies, have an ever expanding supply which causes the debasement of the underlying asset. This is why a dollar today doesn’t buy as much as it did one hundred years ago. 2020 has seen a huge increase in the total amount of dollars created out of thin air by the Fed, the long term consequences of which have yet to be revealed.

4. HODL.

If one “hodls” they are a “Hodler.” This term of endearment refers to a crypto currency user who prefers to hold onto their crypto rather than selling it. It originated in 2013 when someone accidentally misspelled “Holding” to describe their investment thesis.

3. Who is Satoshi? I am Satoshi.

The presumed pseudonymous name of the creator of Bitcoin is Satoshi Nakmoto. While countless investigations have been conducted, none have successfully uncovered the mysterious originator. The community has thus taken on the evangelism of claiming to be the founder by co-opting the term, “I am Satoshi.”

Most famously, the physicist Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto, was incorrectly doxed by Newsweek (meaning his private information and whereabouts were published without his consent).

Dorian, while sharing the namesake with the creator of Bitcoin, was not in fact the founder, but it certainly captured the imagination of the press briefly and led to one of the more bizarre episodes in Crypto’s punchy history.

2. The Honey Badger of Money

One of the most famous youtube videos of all time, The Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger, has collected over 100 million views over its lifetime. The video is dubbed over with a satirical introduction to the Honey Badger, a savagely independent and resilient creature who appears invincible to the threats of the wild and even survives getting bitten by a poisonous cobra.

Early Bitcoin fans quickly dubbed the currency, The Honey Badger of Money, and even put up roadside billboards featuring the famous creature, which perfectly captured the spirit of the early crypto movement, one founded on independent resilience.

1. Magical Internet money.

Behold! The most successful Reddit Ad in history welcomed hundreds of thousands of new community members to one of the most active online message boards. This crude but endearing image created in MS Paint is probably the oldest and most memorable Crypto meme.

A longer story about this meme has already been written about here, but suffice to say, the welcoming wizard was the guide that many followed on their pathway to learning more about Bitcoin and thus crypto. The global crypto movement wouldn’t be where it is today without it.

We hope you liked the list! Did you think we missed any? Maybe a Doge ;)

--

--

Nicolas Cary
@blockchain

Nicolas Cary is a serial entrepreneur and lifelong technologist. Co-Founder & President @blockchain, Co-Founder & Chairman @YBUSA.org, Runner Reader & Fisherman