To the Moon!

If you keep an eye on the price of cryptocurrencies, and especially Bitcoin, then there’s a good chance that you’ve heard this phrase uttered at some point. It is used to describe a spike in prices. Indeed, a spike so big that it goes off the charts and goes all the way up to the moon, metaphorically speaking of course!

It is used by the crypto community when a coin is looking bearish, and is often referenced on social media during such times. Often it will be seen as an indication, if you haven’t already, that it’s a good time to invest into the coin in question. It is also often the subject of many memes.

As cryptocurrency has become more mainstream, it has also become more commonly referenced in the mainstream media – often to speculate when bull runs may occur. 

Two other derivations of the expression are:

Mooning (verb)

Used to describe the action of an asset shooting up in price.

“Have you seen Bitcoin’s price? It’s mooning!”

When Moon?

This grammatically incorrect question stems from a meme and is used within the crypto community to ponder when will a cryptocurrency shoot up in price again. 

“When moon?”

“After the halving!”

However, despite the common use of the phrase and derivations, it is a point of division within crypto. Some say it has become somewhat of a cliché. Because it has been used since the early days of crypto, some point out the volatile nature of cryptocurrency and say that even if a cryptocurrency does go to the moon, it often isn’t for very long. 

Others point out that some use the phrase with malicious intent – to shill a cryptocurrency. Shilling in crypto terms means when someone hypes up a cryptocurrency in order to artificially inflate its price. 

This was especially evident in the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) bubble in 2017, which accompanied bull runs on many cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin. Ultimately 95% of these ICO projects failed, and many of these were initially proclaimed to be going to the moon by crypto enthusiasts.