As bitcoin plunges, Buttcoin cheers: the online community calls for the end of crypto | Bitcoin

ONESince bitcoin plunged below $20,000 in mid-June, many cryptocurrency users were distraught over huge losses – with some reporting losing their life savings. But one corner of the internet was jubilant: Buttcoin, a Reddit subforum launched in 2011 to tinker with cryptocurrency.

“I’m addicted, I need help,” read one popular post. “I just love watching the lines go down too much. I always tell myself ‘after it breaks through this next support line, you’ll be happy’, but there’s ALWAYS another low after that. “I actually hope so flat out at 20K for tonight,” said another user. “I’m a bit tired and need more time to think of new cheaper memes.”

A tech industry worker visiting Buttcoin told the Guardian they stayed up until 3am one night to watch the crash unfold. “I know this may sound pathetic, but I get a dopamine hit when I see the bitcoin price go down. It was so exciting.”

The cryptocurrency flirted with the two-year low again this week, which meant a festive mood at Buttcoin. With around 135,000 members, the subreddit is tiny compared to the millions of people who chat on Reddit’s many pro-cryptocurrency forums. But frequent contributors to the community — whose logo replaces bitcoin’s golden “B” with a pair of golden behinds — describe it as a kind of digital support group, filled with dark humor, for people horrified by the spread of crypto scams and pyramid schemes. While they may not have the power to destroy crypto, they can make jokes when it stumbles. As Buttcoin members say, instead of mining useless digital coins – “they mine comedy gold”.

Just like the cryptoculture it mocks, Buttcoin has its own set of memes. Some of them are simply flipping crypto proverbs. Instead of waiting for token prices to rise “to the moon”, Buttcoin users are chanting “to the floor”. But Buttcoin’s most popular jokes take pro-crypto logic and push it to sarcastic extremes. To prevent crypto promoters’ habit of spinning negative news, Buttcoin users comment “This is good for bitcoin” under cryptocurrency disaster stories. (Bitcoin has been banned in a major country? Good for bitcoin. Bitcoin’s price is falling? Good for bitcoin. Someone lost their life savings to a bitcoin scam? You guessed it… good for bitcoin.)

Another crypto phrase smugly referring to the technology’s complexity, “Few Understand”, has become a Buttcoin meme in its own right. (For example: one Buttcoin user jokes that a 2003 Toyota Camry’s rising price amid crypto crash makes the Camry a superior “value store”. “Every 2003 Camry has a unique VIN, and you can drive it to the supermarket too… Get understand,” replies another. “This is good for Toyota,” says a third.)

Buttcoin’s most senior moderator, an IT worker who goes by spookman, told the Guardian that the 11-year-old forum has “changed like crypto itself, growing and partying. “Initially, the tone was almost entirely ‘Haha… that’s so stupid! ‘ And certainly that element is still there, but today there’s an increasingly tragic element of ‘Ugghh… so many people’s lives are being ruined by this damn thing!'”

The biggest posts on Buttcoin are shot through with schadenfreude. The subreddit always celebrates when bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, falls below token price levels – proving to many Buttcoin users that the scam is about to unravel. “I definitely get hopeful when it starts to drop seriously or when some stablecoin scheme goes to zero,” said Joe, a systems engineer who surfs Buttcoin every day. “There’s a kind of excitement in the validation of that, isn’t there? Especially since the crypto-bro stereotypes are so uncomfortable when they go up in a new bubble.”

But the more controversial posts taunt crypto investors themselves for losing money – although there is disagreement over how far to go. Some high-ranking posts on the subreddit argue that there should be no sympathy for victims. “They can screw themselves,” read one post in late June, with more than 1,500 upvotes: “Criticizing scams is not being mean. Nor is this a support group to help people who have lost all their money on ElonDogPoop Coin.” Not all Buttcoin users agree. “Even though they are assholes, I don’t like the idea of ​​the average [investor] losing their savings even though they should have been able to see the scam for what it is. It unequivocally sucks, says Joe.

There’s a “shared joy in seeing things go up in flames,” said M, a Buttcoin user and tech industry worker, but he still has “sympathy for those drawn into crypto by family members or by the promise of a better life … Times are tough for most people.” He pointed to the victims of Celsius, an unlicensed crypto “bank” that offered massive returns to over a million investors in an alleged ponzi scheme that collapsed earlier this summer. The court testimony – which included pleas from ordinary people who lost their life savings – was “heartbreaking”, Mr M said.

Because Reddit’s pro-cryptocurrency forums are quick to delete critical posts, Buttcoin also attracts users who want to empathize with loved ones who have been caught up in the scam. One support seeker was Izzycc, a 23-year-old social work student whose boyfriend of eight years had become depressed after being sucked into the NFT fad and losing money.

“I absolutely pray for the downfall of cryptocurrency,” she wrote. “It would be a wake-up call for him, he can finally pull himself out of this scam, and maybe even start to feel a little better and not be staring at a number that just keeps going down.” Buttcoin users encouraged Izzycc to break up with her boyfriend – and she did. “It was for a couple of reasons, but the NFT stuff was pretty big,” she told the Guardian.

“I just hated being around it all the time. I hated when he talked to my family about it. It was just kind of embarrassing, I guess.” She’s doing “much better now” but still browses Buttcoin: “The people are fun and I know too much about cryptocurrency not to at least casually browse the site at this point.”

Buttcoin sometimes deals with heavier tragedies. In August, a user described a close friend who had gone all-in on crypto before taking his own life. “I secretly made fun of him,” the user wrote, “until I recently heard the bad news… and it’s hard to feel sorry for crypto bros, but now that I’m here, I do.” “I’m crying hearing about this,” wrote one user. Another user observed: “This sub makes a lot of jokes that I consider comic relief, but everything about this sucks in reality.”

That’s the tension that runs through Buttcoin: beneath the memes lies real pain – and a frustration at watching helplessly as more people around you get hurt. “I think if the crypto cult was just a bunch of guys out in the woods with a server farm and a maypole, there would be no real call for Buttcoin to exist,” Joe said. “But it seems intent on sticking around and becoming a big enough part of the world overall that I don’t have that option.”

Buttcoin isn’t so much a force for resistance as it is a coping mechanism, Joe said, and one that, at least for him, might even backfire.

“I’m pretty sure the algorithms have actually sent me more crypto ads since I started posting regularly because they can’t tell the difference between “I’m reading about how absurd this is” and “I’m reading about this as a potential sucker/customer. ‘” He updates Buttcoin anyway, hoping that one day he will witness the price go all the way to the floor.