Bitcoin goes up when CZ tweets ‘gm’: A theory

Bitcoin nears $100k two weeks after CZ tweeted gm. Coincidence?

article-image

Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao | Ben McShane/Web Summit via Sportsfile/"BE6_1591″ (CC license)

share

Crypto has all sorts of stories we hope are really true.

For one, bitcoin’s rising price is dictated by the world recognizing its raw disruptive power. 

No way that it’s a simple reflection of the global liquidity cycle. Nor does it serve as a basic multiplier on the performance of megacap tech stocks in the Nasdaq 100. Correlation be damned. Coincidence at best.

Here’s another: The price of bitcoin goes up when Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao tweets “gm.”

It’s something I covered a while back. But that was before Zhao finished up his four-month prison stint in September, which included a stay in a Long Beach halfway house.

Zhao has since shared gms on X three times, and each one has preceded bitcoin pumping shortly after.

All in all, bitcoin has rallied 82% since Zhao first tweeted following his release two months ago — from about $54,600 to as much as $99,456 this morning.

Here’s (almost) every “gm” tweet from CZ mapped to the price of bitcoin

Zhao has now tweeted “gm” on 11 different occasions across his full Twitter history, starting in March 2022.

On all but two, the price of bitcoin has gone up in a significant way within days, retained that value and then some. That’s an 80% success rate.

In fact, anyone who’d bought $1,000 worth of bitcoin alongside Zhao’s gms would’ve accumulated 0.317 BTC for $11,000. 

They’d now be able to cash out almost $31,480, which is a profit of 186%.

Of course, correlation is not causation, and loads of stuff correlates with the price of bitcoin in any case.

Here’s a similar, but opposite, story from a few years back: the S&P 500 crashes every time rapper Lil Yachty releases music.

Still, for the superstitious, Zhao’s gms can’t hurt. 

It’s now been two weeks since his last. Sounds overdue.


Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter.

Get alpha directly in your inbox with the 0xResearch newsletter — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.

The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Tags

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 18 - 20, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research Report Templates (2).png

Research

This reports analyzes the competitive dynamics of the Solana DEX landscape, identifying sustainable moats per protocol. We also find that Raydium (RAY), Orca (ORCA), and Lifinity (LFNTY) are valued very similarly on a P/S basis and what this could mean for Meteroa's (MET) valuation, which is still pre-TGE.

article-image

With $800 million now flowing to creditors, some expect a market boost — yet many remain cautious after years of waiting

article-image

There’s more to do on Solana than memecoins, but the market isn’t seeing it that way

article-image

Galaxy’s Alex Thorn said that the saga, paired with TRUMP and MELANIA, could lead to “further destruction of the memecoin complex”

article-image

Anatoly Yakovenko in 2017 embarked on the technical challenge of solving blockchain’s scalability problem

article-image

Grayscale Investments has historically had a four-stage lifecycle for its products, but there’s an indicator this could be changing

article-image

Brian Quintenz and Jonathan Gould are two recent Cabinet nominees with ties to crypto