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Who is Influencing Crypto? Analysis on Influencers

Who is Influencing Crypto? Analysis on Influencers
Author: changehero

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About a month ago, GameStop (GME) stock was soaring because of a Wall Street Bets subreddit. A bit later, the same people got into Dogecoin, and celebrities fanned the flames. The power of social media and communication to tilt the markets has entered the conversation. A little while after the situation, we look back to understand and answer, who is influencing crypto? Looking forward, we also compiled a list of Crypto Twitter influencers to follow on Twitter.

How do Pricing and Trading Work?

Demand curve
Source: Investopedia

Before answering, who is influencing crypto, we have to see how this influence can happen at all. To make the explanation complete, we have to start from the very beginning.

Even though cryptocurrencies are a relatively new class of assets, the market that they entered has been around for ages. Very simply put, the price is formed by supply and demand, as well as the cost of production. This includes cryptocurrencies as well: in this case, the cost of production would be determined by energy consumption.

If cryptocurrency is meeting some needs people have, they will be interested in buying it. This is demand. Supply and emission rate in most cases is hard-coded into the cryptocurrency’s protocol and is predictable. It can be unlimited or have a hard cap, like 21 million Bitcoin. In other words, usually the economic model of a cryptocurrency is predetermined.

In short, the more people want something, the more they are likely to pay for it. The lower the supply, the harder it is to get the goods, and it can further drive the price up. It works both ways, as high-supply currencies will have more steady streams of new users and less “whales” (owners of a large amount of a stock or currency).

Factors Influencing Crypto Market

However, supply and especially demand do not exist in a vacuum. These driving forces can be influenced by information, news, economic factors and so on.

News

News and announcements often can change the course of a trade. For example, if the news is about partnerships or investments, it can be seen as favorable for the fundamentals. As a consequence, the demand and the price will rise. In the same way, if there is negative information, less people will want to own a currency. As there are fewer buyers, the price will have to get lower for someone to buy.

Updates

In the same way, future upgrades or new features can make a currency more wanted. Cryptocurrencies can be used for value transfer or storage. If developers add features that make a protocol meet these needs, the demand is supposed to increase.

Regulations

Crypto market is more regulated than ever these days. However, there are plenty of gray areas left to define, and the attention of regulators can curb the prices hard. Right now, we can witness this with an ongoing legal battle between the US Security and Exchanges Commission and Ripple. The gist of the debacle is whether XRP is considered a security. Under the US laws, if it gets ruled out as such, trading it will be unlawful. This is why XRP can’t catch the wind of the ongoing rally like other top altcoins.

Communities and Social Media

Additionally, as the world in the digital age is more closely connected, communication and sentiment can influence the market. The WallStreetBets movement has very clearly shown that. It is not that all the traders there “liked the stock”, it was more like the sense of community. By getting all in one stock and rooting for it to grow, the WSB members influenced its price. 

A little later, they repeated the same thing with cryptocurrencies like Dogecoin. When this was happening, a large portion of the WSB community moved to Twitter, where they came across Crypto Twitter. In other words, the community who is interested in and who is influencing crypto.

People tweeting about cryptocurrencies
Source: LunarCrush

Crypto Twitter (or CT for short) is self-descriptive, the community of crypto enthusiasts on Twitter. Incidentally, on February 20, it has hit a new all-time high: 71.6k accounts creating unique posts related to cryptocurrencies. CT is as lively as ever.

What influences the crypto market? While the first place to look would be the news, Crypto Twitter is coming in second.

Who is Influencing the Price of Crypto: Cases in Point

The most recent and loud case of tweet-induced pumps have to do with Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. He is known for eccentric posts and love of the Internet culture, especially memes. No wonder back in 2014 he accepted the honor of becoming the CEO of Dogecoin. (Which is, of course, a joke, because Dogecoin is decentralized and community-supported).

So, if the question is who is influencing the price of Dogecoin, you know where to look first.

In 2021, he started tweeting about Dogecoin again, mostly just for memeing:

Other celebrities joined in on the meme, too.

Gene Simmons was also vocal about purchasing other cryptocurrencies, like ADA. None of them outright persuaded people to buy or invest in crypto. The already heated up from the WSB crusade community, though, reacted wildly to the memes. At the start of February, Dogecoin flew up to $0.084, which is a 1,700% growth.

There have been tons of cases when the price of a cryptocurrency pumped just because someone made a single post on Twitter. However, some celebrities have made themselves a name on Crypto Twitter by doing this repeatedly. One of these people is John McAfee, creator of the anti-virus software of the same name. Being a software developer with global fame, he was trusted by thousands of followers on Twitter. 

A day after this tweet, Verge (XVG) was trading for twice as much as it was at the time of the post. However, McAfee did not mean for it to become an endorsement, and in the following tweets he rebuked it repeatedly.

Around the same time, McAfee was actively tweeting about various crypto projects. He promoted several of them allegedly for a $23 million total, and got sued by the SEC.

Sceptics also can make posts that can be interpreted as bullish. Even Peter Schiff, economist and a known Bitcoin critic, does not dismiss the possibility of Bitcoin reaching $100,000. It’s useful to keep tabs on personalities with an opposing view, because they might notice something fans won’t.

Crypto Influencers to Follow on Twitter

These are just a few examples how Crypto Twitter influencers can affect prices, directly or indirectly. Therefore, it is even more important to keep an eye on the accounts with most authority. Who is influencing crypto on the daily? Here are some of these accounts, grouped by categories:

Developers and Scientists

Usually, devs do not care too much about prices or trading. Still, many accounts on Crypto Twitter with the highest follower count are founders, developers or contributors to blockchain projects. In this category, Vitalik Buterin has the most followed account, but here are a few others:

Businessmen and Investors

Another group popular on Crypto Twitter is executives and investors of all kinds. Success in this field does not come without extensive research and understanding.

Writers and Analysts

Not all experts code or put millions into businesses. Some of them choose to share their research on social media for the benefit of the community. Podcasts, newsletters, articles — their content comes in many forms.

Traders

Another category that should not be ignored is traders and technical analysts. The larger the audience, the more likely they are to make the prices move. Top traders on CT are:

Of course, that is not the extent of the variety of Crypto Twitter. There are also other influencers in a more conventional sense: YouTubers and streamers, trendsetters, creators. Neither does the community fit neatly into these boxes: each of the accounts can delve into the business, trading or engineering side. The answer to “who is influencing crypto prices” is the community and platforms rather than a list of people.

Key Takeaways

Conclusion

We briefly talked about who influences crypto and how they can do it. Of course, our list is not definitive, feel free to share your favorite Crypto Twitter influencers in the comments!

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