4chan rises from the dead: How the imageboard moves crypto markets

After 4chan was hacked on April 14 and vast troves of user and moderator data were leaked online, the controversial website quickly went down, and many believed it would never recover. However, less than two weeks later, the imageboard was back online, defiant as ever.

“4chan is back,” an official blog post proclaimed. “No other website can replace it, or this community. No matter how hard it is, we are not giving up.”

The imageboard has left its mark on the world in many consequential ways, birthing countless memes and conspiracy theories, serving as a platform for political movements ranging from the alt-right to Anonymous, and acting as a dumping ground for leaks and hacks of all sorts. 

Crypto is no exception, with 4chan also a historically influential gathering place to share altcoin alpha, coordinate campaigns to pump tokens, share price prophesies and more.

With the imageboard back from the dead, here are just a few of the ways it has influenced the crypto space during its storied history.

Finding alpha on 4chan’s /Biz/ imageboard

The primary hub of crypto activity on 4chan is its /Biz/, or “Business & Finance,” imageboard, where traders, gamblers, investors and commentators gather to share info, shill tokens, and discuss the state of the crypto industry at large. 

The imageboard has gathered a reputation for being a place where intrepid investors can go to learn about moonshot tokens the broader community has yet to discover, though X and Telegram have since given 4chan a run for its money. It has also been ground zero for countless shilling campaigns that have helped pump prices for various tokens.

/Biz/ has also become known for the various prophecies, lore and legends that emerge from its anonymous users. People who claim to have inside knowledge on major market movements often leak alleged secret info on the imageboard or issue prophecies, and every once in a while, they actually turn out to be accurate.

In January 2019, a user correctly predicted that Bitcoin (BTC) would hit $5,300 by April and $9,200 by July, sparking huge interest online. Unfortunately, their remaining price predictions quickly fell short of reality, including that Bitcoin would hit $87,000 by October 2020.

Another user claimed in May 2021 to work at a Chinese firm that collaborated closely with the government and said they had insider information that Bitcoin would sell off due to major news out of China. A few hours later, reports emerged that China would ban payment companies and financial institutions from offering services related to crypto transactions, and Bitcoin sold off.

/Biz/ was also the source of a June 2017 rumor that Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin had died in a car crash. The fake news led to Ether’s (ETH) market cap crashing by $4 billion before Buterin stepped in to share that he had, in fact, not died.

Chainlink and the LINK Marines

Perhaps the most successful shilling campaign to come out of 4chan is that of Chainlink (LINK), which saw a massive rally that started in 2020 and continued into 2021. Many of the oracle project’s most diehard community members, known as the LINK Marines, first discovered Chainlink on /Biz/.

Much of the excitement among the early Chainlink community was galvanized by a mysterious figure known as “AssBlaster,” who claimed to have insider knowledge about the project and would share alpha on /Biz/. 

The LINK Marines relentlessly promoted Chainlink on 4chan and social media platforms, and by 2020, LINK had experienced its first major rally — from $1.80 at the start of the year to a high of $16.64 on Aug. 12.

Following the rally, Mechanism Capital co-founder Andrew Kang declared that “4chan has become the largest market driver” in crypto, “more powerful than even China or institutional crypto fund capital.”

Related: Mechanism Capital founder doubles Bitcoin position with a $200M long

LINK went on in 2021 to hit an all-time high of $49.54, becoming one of the year’s most talked-about crypto success stories.

LINK Marine Albert Nazarov told Cointelegraph Magazine in March 2021 that “4chan is basically a crucible of raw thoughts; the best and balanced make it to the top. It’s almost anything goes there, and it trains the brain to decipher good info from bad stuff.”

Chainlink remains the third most mentioned stock or cryptocurrency on /Biz/ over the last 24 hours as of the time of writing, behind only Bitcoin and Ether.

Pepe the Frog and memes galore

One of the most well-recognized memes associated with 4chan is Pepe the Frog, though its origins have nothing to do with the imageboard. Pepe was created by artist Matt Furie back in 2005 for a comic titled Boy’s Club.

Over the next several years, Pepe was popularized by 4chan and eventually became a mainstream meme. But in 2015, posters from 4chan’s /R9k/ board decided to “reclaim” Pepe and began a campaign to intentionally associate it with the far right. Nevertheless, the frog remains a popular meme on 4chan and in crypto circles.

In the cryptosphere, Pepe became closely associated with Chainlink. Sanctum CEO Tyler Ward, who sparked a Pepe non-fungible token (NFT) craze in 2021, told Magazine, “When Chainlink started doing well, it just became this cultish prophecy of 4chan, and 4chan really likes Pepe the frog, so it was kind of this merger.”

“A lot of people that posted about Chainlink would post with Pepe the Frog, and they kind of became intertwined.”

Crypto’s obsession with Pepe the Frog has since grown significantly beyond its early association with Chainlink. In 2023, the memecoin Pepe (PEPE), named after the frog, was launched and quickly became popular among traders. The token truly took off in 2024 amid the memecoin mania, going from a $591-million market cap at the start of the year to $11 billion by December, flipping Uniswap’s UNI (UNI) token.

But Pepe is not the only 4chan meme to be tokenized and explode in price. Mog Coin (MOG), a memecoin based on the phrase “mogging” — dominating, outclassing or outshining others — gained 1,800% in early 2024. According to CoinGecko, 4chan-themed memecoins command a $37-billion market cap as of May 8.

The popular phrase “we’re all gonna make it,” or WAGMI, was also popularized on 4chan. It was borrowed from Australian bodybuilder Aziz “Zyzz” Shavershian, who would frequently post on the Bodybuilding.com forum as well as 4chan’s fitness board and who passed away in 2011. It later made its way into crypto around 2017, seemingly as users who had been active in online fitness communities got into digital assets.

Despite the growing attention platforms like Telegram and X command among the crypto community, 4chan remains a cultural powerhouse, and these are just a handful of the ways it has influenced crypto culture and markets. 

And with 4chan back online and seemingly fully committed to continuing its operations, they won’t be its final influences — at least as long as 4chan can avoid being taken down for good.

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