In a day where Iran brandished its military might, signaling to the U.S. President that their top general would not be assassinated in vain, crypto responded accordingly. As I write this reports of Iranian missiles attacking Iraqi bases housing U.S. military (and we still have to confirm any U.S. or Iraqi casualties), Bitcoin has escalated as well—to the tune of nearly $1,000 in the past 24 hours.
I spend a lot of screen time in various Telegram chat rooms with crypto millionaires and wannabe crypto millionaires. It hasn’t even been a week yet, but international news has seeped into our feeds. On January 4, one day after General Soleimani’s demise, crypto traders responded.
Cointelegraph reported on January 4, 2020 the following: “While the ‘official rate’ is around 42,000 IRR [Iranian Rial] per 1 USD — which would result in the $24,000 price per Bitcoin — the actual rate in the street would give one something closer to BTC’s actual global market price, currently around $7,300 USD.”
Bitcoin’s 1 SAT was nice and comfortable in its $7,000 USD realm for a few days. But the chain reaction of trader sentiment turning positive has been brewing. As crypto buyers and HODLers we’ve suspected for a while that a Bitcoin Boom is nigh. And with Cointelegraph’s $24,000 quote, a number of us gave a cheer knowing this was the bull run we’d been waiting for—but I was quickly reminded by a crypto millionaire who cares that lives are at stake when war pushes profits. True. Our peer-to-peer platform meant for the little people (like me) can manipulate and fail us when we truly need it.
Now the ripple effect is in motion. Today, January 7, we witnessed Bitcoin surpassing $8400 USD in a matter of hours. This was in response to two countries doing a back and forth chest pounding via Twitter. What happens when our crypto gains “move like rockets”? The Gif game goes wild. Naked women, simulated sex memes, horny humans and animals start populating our feeds. Supposedly with these images, we’re being told, “These are exciting times.” Women flashing their boobs are supposed to tell us that. I could not hold my tongue any longer. I asked for a de-escalation of sorts, just casually mentioning “Some of these gifs clearly don’t reflect the knowledge that women are members of this group as well. SMH.” One of my fellow chat members apologized “for the immaturity,” but then an onslaught of porn graced us all. Bitcoin was on the rise the entire time and a good time was (not) had by all? A couple of hours later, more than a dozen missiles were launched. And Bitcoin hit its 2020 high. Let’s stay on mission, boys. Let’s stay on mission.