If you’ve spent any amount of time on “Bitcoin twitter” or Reddit forums related to Bitcoin, you’ve probably come across a meme or two.
To newbies, these memes might be hard to understand.
So I’ve compiled some of the most popular Bitcoin memes ever created with an easy to understand explanation.
By the end, you’ll understand them all.
Let’s jump in and laugh!
Our first meme makes fun of a common phrase you will commonly hear from people in the ‘crypto’ industry.
“I’m in it for the tech”
The man pictured in the image is obviously not “in it for the tech”. He is in it to get rich.
This meme was created to poke fun at all the bitcoin and crypto people who pretend to “only be in it for the tech” but are happy to flaunt their wealth too.
This meme originally comes from the Netflix film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, in which a veteran outlaw (played by James Franco) stands confidently on a gallows with other less experienced and visibly scared thieves.
Seeing their expression, he asks “First time?” and smiles.
This meme was remixed for Bitcoin to symbolize veteran Bitcoin holders, who are used to wild swings in Bitcoin’s price, welcoming in new investors who are not used to large dips.
In 2022, after a steep drop in the value of Bitcoin, many prominent voices in Bitcoin began to joke that they would need to find work at fast food chains like McDonalds.
Even McDonald’s corporate twitter account got in on the action.
And the responses were hilarious.
And what ultimately resulted was a reformulation of the famous wojak meme character used hundreds of thousands of times across crypto twitter.
In it, we can see a sad and defeated crypto-enthusiast Wojak looking himself in the mirror as he puts on his McDonald’s hat to prepare for his first shift at his new job.
There is an old saying among stock traders that goes something like this:
“When everyone is scared, get greedy. When everyone is greedy, get scared.”
In other words, buy when everyone is selling, and sell when everyone is buying.
This meme illustrates that lesson in terms of the Bitcoin market.
In it, we see a lone man willing to buy Bitcoin when the price is low.
This is the best time to buy and usually only possible after lots of people have sold their Bitcoin in a panic.
On the other side is a line of people trying to buy Bitcoin at the high price.
This is the worst time to buy and usually only possible after lots of other people have purchased it at the low price.
The man on the left is smart.
The people on the right are foolish.
This meme is a riff on a famous scene from the Matrix, where Neo asks Morpheus,
“What are you trying to tell me? That I can dodge bullets?”
And Morpheus replies,
“No, Neo. I’m trying to tell you that when you’re ready, you won’t have to.”
In this remix, Neo is wondering if he will one day be able to sell his Bitcoin for “millions” (of dollars).
The joke is that Morpheus is telling Neo he “won’t have to” because dollars will not longer exist and everything will be sold in exchange for Bitcoin directly.
And on the topic of dollars going away, we have our next meme.
In this one, we have the character Fry from the FOX TV show Futurama, squinting in order to figure something out.
The text reads “Not sure if Bitcoin value is going up or fiat value is going down.”
This is a joke about the purchasing power of a Bitcoin vs the purchasing power of a dollar.
If Bitcoin’s exchange rate with dollars goes up, that can either mean a Bitcoin can buy more or that dollars just buy less.
There is a common joke in Bitcoin circles that holders never sell, even when prices are going up.
Since Bitcoin tends to be a very male-dominated space, holders often talk about their wives begging them to sell some of their Bitcoin when prices are “pumping” and take some profits.
This star wars meme captures that sentiment perfectly.
This might just be the simplest meme on this list.
When prices are going up, you will commonly see this GIF of a cartoon Bitcoin riding a rollercoaster upward posted on forums and on twitter.
Of course, when Bitcoin prices are going down, this same meme is just flipped 180 degrees.
Like so…
This remix of the classic “Trump Bad Trade Deal” meme template is going to be confusing to anyone not well-versed in Bitcoin history.
While we won’t go into too much detail here (since you can read a great summary on our sister-site Bitbo.io), I will outline the basics.
Very early in Bitcoin’s history, before it even had much of a price, a man named Laszlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas from Papa John’s for 10,000 Bitcoins.
Obviously, 10,000 Bitcoins today would be worth a lot more than two pizzas; more like $270,000,000 or around 21 million of Papa John’s small pizzas.
Hence…“the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals, maybe ever”.
This last “meme” is not your typical meme with a picture and some text on top.
This was more an event that has become a meme.
In early July of 2017, then chairman of the U.S. Central Bank (the Federal Reserve), Janet Yellen, was testifying on Capital Hill to persuade congress that the Fed should not be audited.
Bitcoiners tend to distrust the Fed because of its money printing activities and lack of transparency. This was especially relevant at a hearing about auditing a financial institution that affects everyone’s money.
As the camera was filming Yellen testifying before congress, a young Bitcoin enthusiast known only as “Bitcoin Sign Guy” raised up a sign that said “Buy Bitcoin” before being escorted out of the room.
He later received over $16,000 worth of Bitcoin in donations for this massive troll on Fed chair Yellen.
Hopefully this cleared up any confusion you may have had when seeing some of these memes.
Of course, we will update this page whenever a new meme is made and becomes famous enough to warrant an addition to this list.
Check back often if you ever see a Bitcoin meme you aren’t sure about.
If we don’t have it listed, shoot us an email, and we will consider adding it.
BuyBitcoinWorldWide writers are subject-matter experts and base their articles on firsthand information, like interviews with experts, white papers or original studies and experience. We also use trusted research and studies from other well-known sources. You can learn more about our editorial guidelines.
