Joe Biden’s Cryptic Super Bowl Tweet Wasn’t About Bitcoin—Or Was It?

It’s actually not that difficult: The President of america posted a tweet that some individuals imagine was a tacit admission of orchestrating a covert operation to rig the Tremendous Bowl, all within the intention of profitable over an influential pop star that’s supposedly key to his re-election marketing campaign. 

And but, Bitcoin maximalists can’t assist however make the entire thing about them. 

Let’s again up. Shortly after the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs clinched the Tremendous Bowl final night time, President Joe Biden—or maybe extra seemingly, a staff of meme-literate aides—briefly shattered the web by tweeting a picture of the 81-year outdated commander-in-chief along with his eyes glowing diabolically pink, alongside the caption, “Identical to we drew it up.”

The tongue-in-cheek submit was virtually actually a sarcastic reference to an emergent conspiracy principle on the suitable, which posited final week that Biden may rig the Tremendous Bowl within the Chiefs’ favor to be able to curry favor with Taylor Swift—girlfriend of Chiefs tight finish Travis Kelce—and doubtlessly earn the musician’s {powerful} endorsement.

The glowing pink eyes within the submit referenced the so-called “Darkish Brandon” meme, which, in 2022, started co-opting iconography from conservative circles with the (once more, cheeky) intention of portraying Biden as way more invigorated and {powerful} than might meet the attention. 

However, as has been nicely documented, conservative web tradition and crypto web tradition share many widespread roots—and it wasn’t lengthy earlier than some Bitcoin fanatics embraced Biden’s cryptic submit as a dog-whistle meant for them, not conservative conspiracy theorists.

In crypto circles, glowing pink eyes additionally carry explicit that means: They signify an enlightened consciousness of Bitcoin’s significance to humanity’s subsequent chapter. Bitcoin maximalists like Michael Saylor and Caitlin Lengthy have lengthy included “laser eyes” into their Twitter profiles to sign their evolution into super-powerful adherents to the Bitcoin gospel. 

As destiny would have it, within the hours following Biden’s tweet, Bitcoin jumped previous $50,000 for the primary time since 2021. Drunk on that excellent news, some crypto merchants jokingly (or maybe very significantly) attributed the value motion to a covert Biden operation meant to spice up Bitcoin, not the Chiefs.

The intricate layers of irony and double entendre activated by the extraordinarily on-line stunt quickly reached such delirious highs that—whether or not individuals in crypto really thought Biden was trying to ship cloaked messages to Bitcoin maxis, or not—others actually appeared satisfied that crypto customers genuinely believed they have been in a cabal with the American president. 

What’s the reality? Did Biden rig the largest sports activities occasion of the 12 months? Is he single-handedly accountable for BTC’s ascendant run? 

This reporter is not going to weigh in on such heady questions. However he’ll advise that the solutions are seemingly to not be discovered on Twitter.

Edited by Andrew Hayward