Throwback: When WallStreetBets Banned Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin Discussions Due To ‘Bows To Crypto’ Gibe
Benzinga – Reddit investor forum WallStreetBets, which helped drive the trading frenzy in videogame retailer GameStop’s stock in early 2021, reinstated a ban on all cryptocurrency discussions less than 24 hours after allowing a crypto discussion thread with restrictions later the same year.
What Happened: The ban was reinstated in April 2021 after a story by Bloomberg said that WallStreetBets had bowed to the crypto wave.
“Due to the article that was written @bloomberg who somehow felt that ‘WallStreetBets Bows to Crypto’ Crypto discussion is banned indefinitely. I’ve read a lot of dumb articles written about wsb. This one takes the cake,” a post from moderator “bawse1” on the site said.
See Also: Robinhood Goes Beyond Trading: Launches Fiat-To-Crypto On-Ramp For Self-Custody Wallets
Why It Matters: WallStreetBets gained attention as 2021 started as retailer traders belonging to the forum bid up the stock of videogame retailer GameStop and other heavily shorted stocks such as AMC Entertainment to create a short squeeze.
See also: How to Buy Dogecoin (DOGE)
Cryptocurrency as a topic was banned on the Reddit forum for several years as members did not want the focus to deviate from the discussion about publicly traded stocks.
That changed on Wednesday when the moderators of the forum said they would allow discussions on Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC), Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) and Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) — but no other cryptocurrencies — inside a daily Crypto discussion thread.
The decision came after cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase made its high-flying debut on the Nasdaq stock exchange.
The world’s two largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization — Bitcoin and Ethereum — had just seen all-time highs when this saga unfolded in 2021. Bitcoin touched a never-before-seen level of $64,863.10 that week and Ethereum hit an all-time high of $2,547.56. Dogecoin hit an all-time high of $0.2917, lifted by the social media buzz around the meme-centric cryptocurrency at the time.
Read Next: Star Trek’s ‘Captain Kirk’ Predicts Crypto Boom: ‘It’ll Be So Many Thousands Of Dollars In Value’
This story was originally published on April 16, 2021.
© 2023 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
