If it seemed like a wise idea to ditch normal currency for an untested and unregulated digital realm bound to attract grifters and general instability, perhaps it’s time to think again. Over the last six months, cryptocurrencies — including Bitcoin, the world’s most valuable crypto, which others in the market tend to emulate — have been plummeting. Last November, Bitcoin went for nearly $70,000. On Wednesday, it dipped below $30,000.
Bitcoin is down over $36k ever since crypto dot com bought the naming rights to the Staples Center lol pic.twitter.com/McJ5FyDUXf
— dip buyer (@lib_crusher) May 11, 2022
As per Bloomberg, the crypto slightly rebounded, peeking over the $30,000 mark. But it’s the latest volatile development in a downward trajectory that’s taken place over the last six months and has revved up in only the last handful of days. As CNN reports:
The world’s most valuable cryptocurrency was down 10% Monday after plunging again over the weekend. Bitcoin prices have now plummeted nearly 20% in the past week. At a price of just below $31,000, bitcoin is more than 50% below its record high of near $69,000 from late last year and at its lowest point since July 2021.
News that the currency once called “digital gold” was now worth over half of what it was at its peak sent shockwaves across those who invest. (Among them is newish mayor of New York City, who famously declared he’d receive his first paycheck in cryptocurrency.) It also made others remember a fun Super Bowl ad starring Matt Damon, in which he dared the “brave” to go crypto.
Matt Damon doing a crypto ad. Jesus Christ does he not have enough money already pic.twitter.com/mS3tUgJ6HT
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) January 3, 2022
“History is filled with almosts,” Damon crows in the ad, “with those who almost adventured, who almost achieved, but ultimately for them it proves to be too much.” He then suggests those who go crypto are not unlike others who did the unthinkable: mountaineers, the Wright brothers, astronauts. At one point we see people about to make out in a nightclub.
Others remembered the ad, aired in the midst of Bitcoin’s plumet, as well.
Thinking about the obscene amounts of money celebs like Matt Damon must’ve made during the pandemic — one of the largest upward transfers of wealth in decades — and how they still chose to hawk crypto
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) May 11, 2022
omg I love that Matt Damon is trending because of that dumb commercial and the crapto crash
— That Tom Tomorrow guy (@tomtomorrow) May 12, 2022
It took less than a year for NFTs and the metaverse to go from the future of the internet to the latest failed trend. Billions and billions of dollars going *poof*. Just three months ago Matt Damon was in a Super Bowl commercial promising that crypto would lead to riches pic.twitter.com/ZbN2Yfkwz4
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) May 12, 2022
Fond memories of Matt Damon comparing investing in crypto to inventing airplanes and landing on the moon. #Cryptocrash pic.twitter.com/qzpUY9NGp4
— David Kuhne (@D_Khunne) May 11, 2022
When Matt Damon said “fortune favors the brave” and stared out at Mars with the logo of crypto dot com over it what was the implication, that crypto would propel humanity to Mars? Or to simply ad romantic sheen to what is basically pure macho-baiting financial speculation
— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) May 11, 2022
Some used the occasion to reflect on how much those who’ve invested have lost.
If you bought $1000 of a bitcoin ETF when Matt Damon’s “Fortune Favors the Brave!” crypto ad premiered on October 28 last year, you would now have $554. pic.twitter.com/qgeVmGYZw7
— Jon Schwarz (@schwarz) May 9, 2022
If you bought Bitcoin when this Matt Damon commercial came out (“fortune favors the brave”) you would have already lost more than half your money https://t.co/x96KCTu5K1
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) May 10, 2022
Hey remember going to the movies and Matt Damon said if you didn’t buy crypto you were a pussy pic.twitter.com/sXNk0BAZqj
— The Call is Coming from Inside the Nash (@Nash076) May 10, 2022
Look what happened to people who took Matt Damon’s investment advice right now. Which is why—and this should be obvious to even small children— you should never take investment advice from celebrities.
If someone is trying to sell you something that’s too good to be true, it is.
— Stephen Diehl (@smdiehl) May 12, 2022
I feel bad for genuinely poor, desperate people starved by poverty then conned by Matt Damon and Larry David. But otherwise I am happy to see Bitcoin crash and burn before I had to hear more about it, and I hope every pyramid thief who reeled in poor ppl rots in their shame.
— Dr. Thrasher (@thrasherxy) May 12, 2022
And there were jokes.
Matt Damon’s crypto shill ad should’ve been called Bourne Yesterday
— Damon Agnos (@damonagnos) May 11, 2022
Of course, crypto has been “dead” before, so it’s likely just a fallow period. Still, news of cryptocurrency’s possible downfall was only made worse upon learning that another digital fad, NFTs, may have been killed in part thanks to, you guessed it, Elon Musk.