As bitcoin plunged beneath $20,000 in mid-June, many cryptocurrency customers had been distraught over huge losses – with some reporting that they had misplaced their life financial savings. However one nook of the web was cheering: Buttcoin, a Reddit subforum launched in 2011 to poke enjoyable at cryptocurrency.
“I’m addicted, I need assistance,” learn one fashionable put up. “I simply love watching line go down an excessive amount of. I all the time inform myself ‘after it breaks via this subsequent assist line, you’ll be happy’ however there’s ALWAYS one other decrease stage after that.” “I’m truly hoping it ranges off at 20K for tonight,” mentioned one other consumer. “I’m kinda drained and wish extra time to think about new decrease priced memes.”
One tech trade employee who frequents Buttcoin advised the Guardian they stayed up till 3am one night time to observe the crash unfold. “I do know this will sound pathetic however I get a dopamine hit after I see the bitcoin value happening. It was so thrilling.”
The cryptocurrency flirted with its two-year low once more this week, which meant a festive temper at Buttcoin. With about 135,000 members, the subreddit is tiny in contrast with the thousands and thousands of people that chat on Reddit’s many pro-cryptocurrency boards. However frequent contributors to the group – whose brand replaces bitcoin’s golden “B” with a pair of golden buttcheeks – describe it as a form of digital assist group, laced via with darkish humor, for people who find themselves horrified by the proliferation of crypto scams and pyramid schemes. Although they might not have the facility to destroy crypto, they will make jokes when it stumbles. As Buttcoin members say, as a substitute of mining ineffective digital cash – they’re “mining comedy gold”.
Similar to the crypto tradition it mocks, Buttcoin has its personal set of memes. A few of them merely flip crypto sayings. As a substitute of baying for token costs to rise “to the moon”, Buttcoin customers chant “to the ground”. However Buttcoin’s hottest jokes take pro-crypto logic and push them to sarcastic extremes. To skewer crypto promoters’ behavior of spinning destructive information, Buttcoin customers remark “That is good for bitcoin” underneath tales of cryptocurrency catastrophes. (Bitcoin’s been banned in a serious nation? Good for bitcoin. Bitcoin’s value is plummeting? Good for bitcoin. Somebody misplaced their life financial savings to a bitcoin rip-off? You guessed it… good for bitcoin.)
One other crypto catchphrase smugly referencing the know-how’s complexity, “Few perceive,” has been turn out to be a Buttcoin meme in its personal proper. (For instance: a Buttcoin consumer jokes {that a} 2003 Toyota Camry’s rising value amid the crypto crash makes the Camry a superior “retailer of worth”. “Each 2003 Camry has a singular VIN and you may drive it to the grocery store too … Few perceive,” one other replies. “That is good for Toyota,” a 3rd chimes in.)
Buttcoin’s most senior moderator, an IT employee who goes by spookmann, advised the Guardian that the 11-year-old discussion board has “modified as crypto itself as grown and festered. “Initially the tone was virtually fully ‘Haha… that’s so foolish!’ And definitely that factor remains to be current, however these days there’s an more and more tragic factor of ‘Ugghh… so many individuals are having their lives ruined by this rattling factor!’”
The largest posts on Buttcoin are shot via with schadenfreude. The subreddit invariably celebrates when bitcoin, the biggest cryptocurrency, dips beneath symbolic value ranges – which to many Buttcoin customers, proves that the rip-off is unraveling. “I undoubtedly get hopeful when it begins severely dipping or when some stablecoin scheme goes to zero,” mentioned Joe, a methods engineer who browses Buttcoin daily. “There’s a form of thrill to the validation of it, proper? Particularly because the crypto bro stereotypes are so obnoxious every time it goes up in a brand new bubble.”
However the extra controversial posts mock crypto traders themselves for shedding cash – although there’s disagreement over how far to go. Some extremely rated posts on the subreddit argue that there needs to be no sympathy for victims. “They will go fuck themselves,” learn one put up in late June, with greater than 1,500 upvotes: “Criticizing scams isn’t being imply. This additionally isn’t a assist group to assist console individuals who misplaced all of their cash on ElonDogPoop Coin.” Not all Buttcoin customers agree. “Even when they’re assholes, I don’t relish the thought of the typical [investor] shedding their life financial savings even when they need to have been in a position to see the rip-off for what it’s. That unambiguously sucks,” Joe says.
There’s a “shared enjoyment of watching issues go up in flames”, mentioned M, a Buttcoin consumer and a tech trade employee, however he nonetheless has “sympathy for these drawn into crypto by members of the family or by the promise of a greater life … Occasions are robust for many.” He pointed to the victims of Celsius, an unlicensed crypto “financial institution” that provided huge returns to over one million traders in an alleged ponzi scheme that collapsed earlier this summer season. The court docket testimonies – which included pleas from peculiar individuals who misplaced their life financial savings – had been “heartbreaking”, M mentioned.
As a result of Reddit’s pro-cryptocurrency boards rapidly delete important posts, Buttcoin additionally attracts customers trying to commiserate over family members who’ve been caught up within the rip-off. One assist seeker was Izzycc, a 23-year-old social work pupil whose boyfriend of eight years had turn out to be depressed after getting sucked into the NFT fad and shedding cash.
“I’m completely fucking praying for the downfall of cryptocurrency,” she wrote. “It could imply a wakeup name for him, he would possibly lastly pull out of this rip-off, and perhaps even begin to really feel a bit higher not looking at a quantity that’s solely happening.” Buttcoin customers urged Izzycc to interrupt up along with her boyfriend – and so she did. “It was for a few causes, however the NFT stuff was form of an enormous one,” she advised the Guardian.
“I simply hated being round it on a regular basis. I hated when he would discuss to my household about it. It was simply form of embarrassing, I assume.” She’s doing “quite a bit higher now”, however nonetheless browses Buttcoin: “The individuals are humorous, and I do know an excessive amount of about cryptocurrency to not at the least casually browse the location at this level.”
Buttcoin typically offers with heavier tragedy. In August, a consumer described a detailed pal who had gone all-in on crypto earlier than he killed himself. “I used to be secretly making enjoyable of him,” the consumer wrote, “until I not too long ago heard the unhealthy information … and it’s exhausting to really feel sorry for crypto bros, however now that I’m right here, I do.” “I’m tearing up listening to about this,” wrote one consumer. One other consumer noticed: “This sub makes quite a lot of jokes that I take into account comedian aid, however the whole lot about this sucks, in actuality.”
That’s the strain that runs via Buttcoin: beneath the memes lies actual ache – and a frustration of watching helplessly as extra folks round you get harm. “I feel if the crypto cult was only a bunch of dudes off within the woods with a server farm and a maypole there wouldn’t be any actual name for Buttcoin to exist,” mentioned Joe. “Nevertheless it apparently intends to stay round and turn out to be a sufficiently huge a part of the world general that I don’t have that choice.”
Buttcoin isn’t a lot a drive for resistance as it’s a coping mechanism, Joe mentioned, and one which at the least for him, might even be backfiring.
“I’m fairly positive the algorithms have truly been sending me extra crypto adverts since I began posting repeatedly as a result of they will’t inform the distinction between ‘I’m studying about how absurd that is’ and ‘I’m studying about this as a possible sucker/buyer.’” He refreshes Buttcoin anyway, hoping he’ll someday witness the worth go all the best way to the ground.
