The 5 Tweets That Moved the Crypto World in 2022

#1. CZ’s Tweet That Caused a Bank Run on FTX

If the Tweet Awards were an actual awards ceremony, the following tweet should take home the big prize this year. On November 6, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, commonly known as “CZ,” took to Twitter to explain that his exchange would liquidate its entire FTT holdings, citing “recent revelations that have come to light.”

The story of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, its liquidity crisis, and its possible fraudulent behavior, quickly unfolded from there and caused immense devastation across the entire crypto market.

A follow-up Tweet where SBF announced FTX was being acquired by Binance (the deal fell through) was arguably the more publicized Tweet but CZ’s initial message is really what lit the fuse.

Now that SBF has been arrested and FTX is in shambles it’s clear this Tweet will have ramifications on the crypto industry for years to come.

#2. Crypto Twitter Saw UST Stablecoin Crash in Real Time

On May 7 a permanent moon eclipse was well on its way for the algorithmic stablecoin UST and Its companion token, Luna. That day, the much-lauded stablecoin started to wobble and was rapidly losing its $1 peg. On May 9 UST fell to 35 cents and continued to crash into oblivion from there. Luna, which was meant to stabilize UST’s price, joined the horrible crash party and saw its price drop from $80 to a few cents just a few days later.

It is hard to pinpoint the exact tweet that set off this particular chain reaction of price nastiness. However, Aztec’s Jonathan Wu was one of the first analysts who was able to present a clear, real-time analysis of the UST depegging and chaos that surrounded this dreadful event.

As a self-proclaimed Twitter native, Wu was on the ball and provided much-needed information while Terra’s stablecoin, UST, fell off a cliff toward a certain death.

Arguably the most infamous Tweet might have come from Luna creator Do Kwon who, in the middle of the crisis, Tweeted, “Deploying more capital – steady lads“. It obviously didn’t work out and the Tweet has become somewhat of a meme in the crypto community.

#3. Celsius Suddenly Paused All Withdrawals

On June 12, the cryptocurrency lending platform, Celsius, tweeted that they were pausing all withdrawals, swaps, and transfers between accounts. Needless to say that this one tweet pushed the entire crypto market into a downward spiral. One month later the platform filed for voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy in New York.

The lending company did not have the liquidity to fulfill withdrawal requests and was placing customers’ deposits into high-risk investments. With how this platform mishandled user deposits, it is no surprise that many describe Celsius as a Ponzi scheme.

The most disturbing is of course that the fate of Celsius users, who have been cheated out of billions of dollars worth of crypto, remains uncertain to this day.

#4. Elon Musk and His Dogecoin Fixation

The world’s richest man Elon Musk is no stranger to controversy. He surely must be one of the most talked about CEOs by a long shot and it is fair to say that he changed the way all of us think about electrical cars, traveling to mars, and Twitter itself.

With big personalities like Elon you never truly know what to expect or what their next move will be. It is quite impossible to predict how Elon feels about any given topic at any given time, from underpopulation to bitcoin. You just never know where his sometimes outlandish views land for the day.

But with 120 million Twitter followers hanging on to every tweet, it should come as no surprise that his Twitter words can be true market movers. Especially in crypto.

One of the many possible examples is the May 27 tweet where Elon posted that Tesla and Space X merch could soon be bought with dogecoin. This single tweet skyrocketed the price of the struggling memecoin by more than 10% in less than a day.

It once again shows that Elon’s tweets have a superpower ability to move markets fast and furious.

#5. Coinbase Launches Attack on Tether

Coinbase, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, recently urged its users to convert their USDT to USDC. The crypto exchange highlighted the quality of reserves that back USDC while pointing out that a lot of questions remain unanswered about Tethers reserves. In a recent blog post, Coinbase also said that USDC is one of the most trusted and reputable stablecoins on the market. It is clear that the exchange doesn’t shy away from throwing down some serious shade on its number one competitor.

We ranked this tweet at the end of our list, simply because at the time of writing it remains unclear how impactful this newsbit will turn out to be on the crypto markets.

Will this tweet ignite a bank run on Tether? Or is USDC experiencing its own liquidity crisis? Or perhaps we are confronted with the beginning of a full-on stablecoin war among the various crypto exchanges.

Most likely, it will turn out to be Tether-FUD. But if it is not, hold on to your seats, because the wonderful world of crypto could experience a devastating setback in that case.