The origin of ‘number go up’ in Bitcoin culture – Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain Skip to content Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain Blockchain and cryptocurrency news and analysis by David Gerard About the author Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain: The Book Book extras Business bafflegab, but on the Blockchain Buterin’s quantum quest Dogecoin Ethereum smart contracts in practice ICOs: magic beans and bubble machines Imogen Heap: “Tiny Human”. Total sales: $133.20 Index Libra Shrugged: How Facebook Tried to Take Over the Money My cryptocurrency and blockchain commentary and writing for others Press coverage: Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain Press coverage: Libra Shrugged Table of Contents The conspiracy theory economics of Bitcoin The DAO: the steadfast iron will of unstoppable code Search for: Main Menu The origin of ‘number go up’ in Bitcoin culture 27th May 201923rd March 2021 - by David Gerard - 6 Comments. This post is ridiculously popular, for unclear reasons. Please check out the news blog, buy my book — it got good reviews! — or sponsor the site! You can also sign up (for free) at the “Get blog posts by email” box at your right! Bitcoin believers — often the same Bitcoin believers — will say whatever they think is good news for Bitcoin at that moment. From anarcho-capitalism and replacing the International Bankers, to stablecoins and institutional investors. Because “NUMBER GO UP” is the only consistent Bitcoin ideology. The phrase itself — without a “the,” for ungrammatical effect — has long been used wherever Goodhart’s law applies — “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” But who first applied “number go up” to cryptocurrency? This came up in a Twitter discussion today, when it was mentioned by Chris DeRose. So I went looking. The earliest “number go up” I’ve found in crypto discussion is from SomethingAwful — not the Buttcoin thread, but one of the other SomethingAwful crypto threads at the time — in a comment by user Blade Runner, on 5 October 2017 (archive), as the crypto bubble was in full swing: It’s legitimately amusing to see a Ham shoe shine boy incessantly screeching with no knowledge of how Buttcoin works beyond “NUMBER GO UP, ME COULD HAVE HAD BIG NUMBER, GOON BAD” There are many reasons that it’s a terrible investment, and these have been explained over and over again, and yet the man continues to screech while pointing at an imaginary number inflated by ridiculous amounts of margin trading on an exchange that can’t be withdrawn from It was promptly adopted both on that thread and the main Buttcoin thread. Particularly by me. The earliest crypto Twitter “number go up” without a “the” that I can find is from @VexingCrypto talking about their WaltonCoins, on 15 November 2017. Though it wasn’t in the present sense:   I just locked in an order for $Wtc on #Binance at .0006500 and I'm not changing it as long as $BTC is going up. LOCK YOUR NUMBER NOW! Change order when $BTC drops then your shares for same number go UP. We will see what happens. #Waltonchain #Bitcoin — Vexing Crypto 💦 (@VexingCrypto) November 15, 2017   The first usage I can find on Twitter in the present usage seems to be from me, on 9 December 2017, about proof-of-work crypto mining:   PoW is a kludge, a terrible one. it was literally never an actually good idea. and bitcoin had substantially recentralised after five years anyway. now it's just a complete waste. and as other coins have shown, nobody actually cares about 51% as long as number go up. — David Gerard 🐍👑 🌷 (@davidgerard) December 9, 2017   @buttcoin used it the next day, about Iota:   because number go up look,, i don't think you,,, really understand,,,, the blockchain,,,,, https://t.co/dSxFDengng — Buttcoin (@ButtCoin) December 10, 2017   Since then, the number of “number go up” continue only go up. BULLISH! TO THE MOON!! Your subscriptions keep this site going. Sign up today! Share this: Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window) Click to share on Hacker News (Opens in new window) Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window) Taggedbitcoinbuttcoinnumber go upsomethingawful Post navigation Previous Article Woolf, the University on the Blockchain — or not Next Article News: LocalBitcoins less local, Cryptopia, QuadrigaCX, crypto banking, Telegram, Wirecard, EOS Voice, Kik and Defund Crypto, Wright gets a copyright competitor 6 Comments on “The origin of ‘number go up’ in Bitcoin culture” Ranulph Flambard says: 28th May 2019 at 2:43 am Numbers go up IS GOOD. Numbers go down is bad. Simples. Reply Satoshi Nakamoto says: 28th May 2019 at 4:59 pm Fly away goon, all the way back to GBS. Reply David Gerard says: 28th May 2019 at 7:53 pm as a cultured denizen of PYF, C-SPAM and YOSPOS, I, er, never mind. Reply Chris DeRose says: 3rd June 2019 at 8:41 pm Love it. The unironic adoption by the bitcoin community, of this mantra, is hilarious. Reply David Gerard says: 3rd June 2019 at 9:13 pm NUMERALIS ASCENDUS! Reply Flibbertygibbet says: 4th May 2021 at 3:02 am “This post is ridiculously popular, for unclear reasons.” It’s the top google result for “number go up”. You somehow stumbled into SEO. Reply Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked * Comment Name * Email * Website Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Search for: Click here to get signed copies of the books!   Get blog posts by email! Email Address Subscribe Support this site on Patreon! 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