Happy Friday!

It’s been a fun week. Bitcoin’s just on the cusp of $100k (I hope we didn’t jinx it), Gary Gensler’s packing his bags in January and SOL’s carving out new all-time highs. It’s good to be in crypto.

This morning, we’re taking a look at the correlation between a simple “gm” and bitcoin’s price action. We also search for where all the narratives went. 

And don’t forget to weigh in on our Thanksgiving-themed poll at the end. 

Have a great weekend, and we’ll see you bright and early Monday morning.

👋 Say it back

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.

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.

— David Canellis

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Where are the narratives?

That’s the question Jason Yanowitz posed in the Empire Roundup this morning. The vibes are high, but not as high “as they could be,” he added, because there’s nothing to drive it higher.

“We don't need a hundred narratives to justify the existence of the space … people that are not in crypto are just beginning to appreciate that narrative and how explosive that is,” Santi said. “We just need to double down on the things that are working.”

There are plenty of headlines around crypto for those looking to find a reason to be bullish, but outside of the president-elect’s potential moves around crypto, the news doesn’t seem to stick. 

Though memecoins continue to get the love, with Yanowitz noting that he had a friend who launched a memecoin fund rather than build a company onchain. 

At this point, it is hard to dig around and say what the next big thing will be. We know what it probably won’t be, as I mentioned in Thursday’s Empire: L2s. We also know areas some folks are bullish on, and why. Is that enough?

It’s an interesting question and one with no easy answers. At this point, I’m wondering if the overall market is holding its breath for bitcoin at $100,000 before any nextgen narratives come out of the woodwork.

And now you know.

The memecoin movement is real right now.

“Meme token liquidity as measured by the 1% market depth on U.S. exchanges reached an all-time high of $110 million last week,” Kaiko analysts said earlier this week.

“While large-cap meme tokens like SHIB and DOGE continue to dominate with over 70% market share of the total depth, their share has been gradually declining, indicating a growing interest in smaller tokens.”

Personally, I'm curious whether this rally has legs. Even with BTC and SOL carving out fresh all-time highs, it’s expected — at least by analysts I’ve spoken to — that we’ll eventually see the price action hit a wall and potentially dip before retaking higher levels.

Whether memecoins will ride the same train is anyone’s guess at this point, given how speculative and volatile they are.

— Katherine Ross

Last week, we asked: “Will the US government form a strategic bitcoin reserve in the next four years?”

60% of you replied, “Absolutely, strap in,” while a tad over a quarter chose to side with whatever Polymarket says will happen. Smart move.

This week, we’re wondering: