One bitcoin is price $100,000 — a milestone that has crypto OGs in a tizzy. Donald Trump is promoting DOGE T-shirts. It is a frenetic time for crypto.
However what are my non-crypto buddies texting me about?
“Hawk Tuah” coin. Yep, in a really unscientific pattern dimension of the seven buddies who texted me — unsolicited — about crypto this week, six primarily requested: “What’s the deal with Hawk Tuah coin?” (The seventh requested about litecoin).
{That a} low-level movie star’s dalliance with memecoins would dominate the groupchat’s mindshare on the similar time the unique cryptocurrency smashed via a historic stage factors to a chasm between the crypto business’s notion of itself and most people’s — or at the very least my buddies’ — notion.
When HAWK launched Wednesday, it instantly rocketed up to a market capitalization of just about $500 million. Then, simply as quick, it crashed under $100 million, wiping out particular person investments as soon as price tons of of 1000’s of {dollars}. It now fetches lower than $30 million.
Betting on memecoins is rarely a surefire funding technique. However there have been indicators that Hawk Tuah was a worse funding than most. Its launch was marred by allegations of insider dumping (which the founders deny) and a dear swap tax that did not cease snipers from primarily manipulating its value.
The general public who reached out to me did not know this stage of element. They’d simply heard the “hawk tuah” lady, Haliey Welch, had launched a memecoin and it didn’t go very properly.
“It reinforces my previous belief that it’s all nonsense,” mentioned one buddy who purchased bitcoin in 2020 however rapidly offered. He acknowledged that bitcoin and Ethereum’s ether could have “certain technological advances.” And but, “the fact that essentially anyone can create a new — potentially preferred — cryptocurrency at any point in time” boggled his thoughts.
To my shock, this buddy had not heard that one bitcoin was now price $100,000, the headline story in line with most everybody who works inside crypto. A lot of the “normies” who reached out to me about HAWK did not know this.
As an alternative, they questioned if Hawk Tuah would face authorized blowback. “I can’t help but feel like [Haliey] Welch is gonna be unintentionally responsible for some butterfly effect that ruins people’s lives,” one other buddy mused.
Much less fascinating to him was the worth of bitcoin. He wasn’t serious about shopping for earlier than, and positively not now. “I don’t like crypto,” he mentioned.
Loads of folks do not like crypto. Which may be why loads of the folks I do know are so enchanted by HAWK. It reinforces all of the dangerous, scammy notions they’ve for what they view as digital nonsense nickels.
In fact, that is the promise and peril of permissionless blockchains. Anybody can do something.
Of the individuals who reached out to me, just one talked about bitcoin with out prompting. That buddy, a gold bug, jokingly taunted me for bitcoin’s failure to carry $100k for even 24 hours.
One other buddy who buys cryptocurrencies via Robinhood admitted he owed no BTC. “I don’t really have a reason why I have no btc,” he mentioned, “I guess im just so not mainstream.”
“I’m riding litecoin to the fkn moon.”
