Bitcoin, Ether, and other major cryptocurrencies took serious losses over the past week, and the crypto community is dealing with it the way it knows best: with memes.
A series of memes on Twitter this week revived a long-running joke in crypto circles that when crypto prices drop, traders have to get a real job to make ends meet. The go-to real job: flipping burgers at McDonald’s.
Crypto superfans like Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, and billionaire Elon Musk have jumped onto the trend. Bukele tweeted a photo of himself wearing a McDonald’s hat and nametag.
He followed that up with a Monday tweet that seemed like a joke, encouraging people to buy the dip with a piece of their McDonald’s paycheck. He finished the tweet by saying, “Now go back to flip more burgers you lazy fvçk!”
Musk jumped onto the trend Tuesday with a tweet to McDonald’s, saying he would eat a Happy Meal live on TV if the fast-food giant started accepting one of his favorite cryptocurrencies, Dogecoin, as a form of payment.
McDonald’s had not replied to the offer as of Tuesday afternoon.
The bulk of the memes are being created by average people. Some have tweeted pictures of job applications at the McDonald’s Twitter account, while others have said the dips and increases in Bitcoin’s price look like the signature McDonald’s golden arches.
Still others have been more entrepreneurial. One person minted 1,111 McDonald’s job applications in the form of NFTs and listed them for sale on OpenSea. In the description for the token, the creator said, “ETH going down? Can’t afford living? We got you! Apply now to your dream 9 to 5 McDonald’s job with our application.” The NFTs are not associated with McDonald’s corporate.
It’s not the first time the meme of working at McDonald’s, or another service industry job, has circulated in online crypto communities to make light of falling crypto prices. In late June, when crypto prices dropped below $30,000, McDonald’s tweeted a link to its jobs website and said, “Hey Crypto Bro’s we got you Apply below.”
After dropping to as low as $35,000 last Friday, prices rebounded about 7% Tuesday to $36,579. The price of Bitcoin is still down about 46% since it reached a high of nearly $69,000 in early November 2021.
McDonald’s did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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