- A joke about wETH depegging has led to a Bloomberg becoming a crypto laughing stock
- The outlet suggested that wETH’s insolvency might be behind Bitcoin’s weekend drop
- The wETH claims started as a joke on Twitter
A joke about the supposed insolvency of the wrapped ETH (wETH) has resulted in Bloomberg citing it as a reason for an overnight drop in Bitcoin’s price. wETH is simply ETH wrapped in an ERC-20 standard, allowing it to be used with DeFi applications, and as such has no intrinsic difference from ETH. Nevertheless, the joke about it being insolvent led to Bloomberg suggesting that “analysts” worrying about the wETH/ETH peg was one reason why Bitcoin dropped in price last night.
wETH for 0.5 ETH
The joke was started by popular Twitter user cygaar (@0xCygaar) who warned that wETH was about to be insolvent and that he would buy concerned holders’ wETH at 0.5 ETH per token. If the joke wasn’t obvious enough, he added shortly afterwards that he was clearly joking:
This is a shitpost.
— cygaar (@0xCygaar) November 26, 2022
The joke spread on Twitter, with some less educated crypto users spreading FUD regarding the peg, leading to Bloomberg incredibly deciding to use the narrative to explain Bitcoin’s Sunday night price slide:
Who these ‘analysts’ were Bloomberg didn’t say, although they later alluded to ‘crypto watchers’ when tangling themselves in knots about it:
Crypto watchers also pointed to worries about wrapped Ether, which is meant to have the same value as Ether while allowing access to more applications.
Bloomberg did then cite an actual analyst, Markus Thielen, head of research and strategy at crypto lender Matrixport, who explained what wETH was and how it could not depreciate in this way, but the cat was out of the idiotic bag by then, and crypto Twitter rejoiced:
“Crypto watchers also pointed to worries about wrapped Ether, which is meant to have the same value as Ether while allowing access to more applications.”https://t.co/KTzB6wYIZn pic.twitter.com/qAZ7KkITUI
— Hsaka (@HsakaTrades) November 28, 2022
In case you needed more evidence that traditional media often operates with zero journalistic integrity…
Bloomberg took a CT inside joke about WETH (no, WETH cannot go insolvent) and published it as fact
I can’t believe they have the gall to charge for these articles. https://t.co/nhoegSAIze
— FatMan (@FatManTerra) November 28, 2022
Hopefully Bloomberg has learned not to rely on the thoughts of unattributed ‘crypto watchers’ when it looks for reasons why Bitcoin’s price does what Bitcoin’s price always does.
