Original Author: Arkham Research Team

Original Compiler: Frank Fu, Investment Manager at IOSG Ventures

TL ; DR

Just yesterday, the well-known "Big Short" in the cryptocurrency circle, GCR, tweeted for the first time in a year, encouraging everyone not to "give up" during the recent market crash, with over 50,000 likes on the tweet. Many are likely curious about the legendary trader's story in the cryptocurrency field.

This article takes this opportunity to detail GCR's background, trading philosophy, and the market analysis and predictions he has shared in past tweets. GCR is known for his outstanding performance on the FTX exchange and his accurate predictions of market trends. His preference for shorting, investments in meme coins and NFTs, and his bets on the 2024 U.S. presidential election are all reflected in the text.

Although GCR reduced his social media activity at the beginning of 2023, his market insights and trading strategies continue to attract attention from the cryptocurrency community. GCR's last public statement emphasized a positive outlook on the future of cryptocurrency, particularly a long-term bullish view on Ethereum prices. This article is believed to help restore confidence in the future development of the cryptocurrency market in the digital age and provide valuable experiences and insights for the public.

Introduction

GCR is one of the most famous traders in the crypto space. He is known on the now-defunct FTX exchange under the alias "Gigantic-Cassocked-Rebirth" and has gained widespread recognition on Twitter for frequently sharing verified investment tips related to crypto, multiple successful predictions, and clever writing.

From 2021 to 2022, he frequently appeared on FTX's leaderboard of top traders, outperforming many other market participants and becoming one of the most profitable figures on the exchange. Although his identity remains a mystery, he claims to have started with almost nothing and accumulated wealth solely through trading.

GCR Arkham User Profile

One of GCR's first posts after appearing on the FTX leaderboard - posted using the @GiganticRebirth account

1. GCR's Background and History

GCR has never publicly discussed his background in depth but occasionally mentions snippets of his life before entering the crypto world. On the X platform, he mentioned that he initially had a $1,000 portfolio and stated that this was his "only chance," gradually increasing his assets through trading. He first showcased his predictive abilities through political influence analysis, a practice he frequently refers to on the X platform. He has also dabbled in sports betting and claimed to have "possibly spent thousands of hours" researching how to extend life.

GCR's tweet about his early history

He describes himself as a hard worker. When the market is favorable, he encourages other traders on Twitter to invest over 120 hours a week to hone their skills. Although he encouraged his audience to take a break at the end of 2022, he personally stated that he had not taken a day off in nearly three and a half years.

GCR's advice to traders

GCR is essentially a contrarian operator—he frequently mentioned a "Tree of Life" in his tweets from 2021, which is key to leveraging the market. After much speculation from various traders about GCR's secret, he eventually hinted that this "Tree of Life" is actually just a willingness to bet against consensus views. He is a devoted follower of George Soros and often references Soros's talking points, discussing reflexivity and contrarian thinking.

GCR's contrarian strategy reflects his deep understanding of market behavior and his precise grasp of crowd psychology. He recognizes that in the market, the views of most people are often wrong, and real opportunities are often hidden in the opposite direction of consensus. This way of thinking allows him to find profit opportunities amid market fluctuations, achieving success through unconventional trading decisions.

George Soros's theory of reflexivity posits that the biases of market participants affect market prices, and these price changes, in turn, influence participants' expectations and behaviors, creating an interactive cycle. GCR is clearly influenced by this theory and applies it to his trading strategy, seeking imbalances and opportunities in the market through contrarian thinking.

Some of GCR's contrarian predictions

He is best known for publicly and successfully trading crypto during the 2021 and 2022 markets, amassing a large following of loyal fans across his various backup accounts. However, at the beginning of 2023, he became silent, leaving the X platform with the post "This may be my last tweet about crypto." Since then, his social accounts have gone quiet.

2. The Crypto Bull Market - Early 2021

In early 2021, GCR was not well-known and had only a small number of followers on Twitter, where he would post details about his recent market sentiment and trading activities. From the beginning, he favored contrarian views, and one of his earliest posts detailed his short position on the GME price surge driven by retail investors in January 2021. He wrote, "I've always found Reddit culture repulsive; I stand with the oligarchs and the rich."

GCR discusses meme stock trading

The content he published in 2021 mainly included trading principles that would later be widely circulated on Crypto Twitter, emphasizing the importance of patience and finding areas where one can leverage unique advantages.

GCR's advice on news trading

Interestingly, he also shared a previous prediction: "If you invest 20 Ethereum in SHIB and wait 5 months until the peak of the bull market, it might be worth $40 million." By May 2021, it turned out that traders only needed to invest 2 Ethereum in Shiba Inu (SHIB) to make a profit of $40 million. This was GCR's first post highlighting his fondness for meme coins (a category of assets that was particularly met with skepticism by traditional traders in early 2021).

GCR's trading discussion on SHIB

During April and May, he issued many bearish warnings, strongly opposing popular bullish narratives like the "supercycle" promoted by other popular traders of 2021, such as 3AC's Su Zhu. His reasoning for supporting his stance was sometimes very simple, merely contrasting it with the "mainstream market view" driven by the retail trading frenzy of 2021.

GCR's tweet warning of a market correction

During the early 2021 crypto frenzy, the popular meme coin Dogecoin (DOGE) began to soar in price. By the peak in May 2021, DOGE's price had risen by 69,136%, far exceeding its low in 2020. Dogecoin is a "meme coin," a coin without utility or fundamental support. It unexpectedly reached a market cap of $98 billion after tech mogul Elon Musk took an interest in it and began discussing it on Twitter. Much of its rise was driven by the liquidation of short positions held by traders who did not believe a joke currency could have such a significant market cap.

One of GCR's most famous trades in early 2021 was publicly shorting DOGE at the top on May 9, 2021—the day Elon Musk appeared on "Saturday Night Live" (SNL). Over a year later, he explained, "Due to some 'future catalysts,' coins heavily held by retailers are often hyped for months… Just when retail traders imagine meme catalysts will make them millionaires, market makers use the last liquidity waterfall to distribute (the chips)."

GCR shorting Dogecoin at the peak

3. Going Against the Tide - Second Half of 2021

In the second half of 2021, GCR turned bearish, publicly issuing advice to remind traders of his previous warnings—reduce trading under unfavorable conditions and do not harbor any illusions that "altcoins can survive independently and swim in the goblin town of BTC."

On July 15, GCR posted his infamous 2022 bear market prediction in a private Telegram chat, forecasting a long and deep bear market, where even the strongest projects would have little chance to breathe.

"Local bottoms will be around $20,000… macro/stocks peak in 2022… most altcoins will drop 95% or 99%."

GCR's bear market prediction

GCR's bearish stance did not mean he would leave the crypto market—on the contrary. While remaining optimistic about the remaining opportunities in the 2021 market, his strategy in the second half of 2021 shifted to shorting positions as market liquidity flowed out. From that point on, he heavily shorted altcoins that were weak or strong relative to BTC.

GCR discussing the altcoin market on Twitter

He also applied his predictive skills to different assets and fields. First, he returned to political predictions and successfully bet on the rise of dark horse Valérie Pécresse during the 2022 French presidential election.

Pécresse ultimately did not win—but GCR later stated that his goal was to capitalize on the upside potential once a fringe candidate gained mainstream acceptance— as he explained, the difference between 5% and 50% is a tenfold return, while betting on the winner in a close race only yields a twofold return.

GCR's political prediction

In August, GCR began speculating on NFTs (non-fungible tokens), favoring their lower market cap compared to what he referred to as "altcoin 2.0" meme coins. In addition to attempting to purchase hundreds of "Pudgy Penguins" NFTs, his address won a "Sad Doge" NFT in an auction, which he sold for $2 million in USDC (a stablecoin) a month later. However, he commented that NFTs are a very difficult asset class to gain exposure to, stating, "My NFT investments are seven figures but account for less than 1% of my net worth and are part of my broader barbell investment strategy."

GCR's NFT purchases

By October 2021, he began betting on Trump winning the 2024 election. Due to the large scale of the trades, it was nearly impossible to obtain sufficient liquidity on exchanges, so he ultimately had to resort to direct over-the-counter (OTC) trades with Alameda Research. Just over a year later, Alameda Research's balance sheet was leaked, revealing they still held $7.3 million worth of unhedged TRUMPLOSE tokens—likely the remainder of GCR's trades.

GCR's prediction on Trump's re-election in 2024

In October, GCR published advice for young traders to spend time looking for all possible advantages in the market. "Even if you live another 80 years, you will never have such an easy opportunity to acquire generational wealth." This extreme prosperity lasted about two months—until the end of November 2021, when the crypto market reached its historical peak.

GCR's advice to young traders

Soon after, he began recruiting members for a new team—named RebirthDAO. Its claimed goal was to form a "decentralized hedge fund" by combining the strengths of many highly successful traders in the crypto market. The team's first trade was a news trade in October 2021: aimed at identifying and capitalizing on the approval of the Proshares BTC futures ETF. According to GCR, this trade was very successful—RebirthDAO was one of the first public traders to receive news alerts that pushed BTC prices from $57.1K to $59K, giving them a valuable few seconds advantage over other news traders.

GCR discussing RebirthDAO on Twitter

4. "The Big Short" - GCR in 2022

GCR discussing shorting the market in November 2021

After a busy October 2021, GCR slowed down in November—due to the altcoin market reaching an extremely euphoric state, he chose to take a break. On November 22, he posted online, "I'm back, starting to short." Two days later, he explicitly stated that the market was nearing a cyclical peak: "I am confident we are at the tail end of the cycle, and the cycle still exists… If you have made money, now ensure your profits are safe." About two weeks earlier, on November 10, BTC's price had reached its peak in the cycle at $69,000. For traders entering 2022, he offered one piece of advice:

GCR's advice to traders

GCR began looking for ways to profit from what he believed was an overheated altcoin market through Rebirth DAO. At that time, the total value of the entire crypto market exceeded $3 trillion, and GCR sought those coins that would have a large number of new token issuances in 2023, gathering as much information as possible about token unlocks with his DAO team. Rebirth DAO chose not to short the largest market cap coins like BTC or Ethereum but planned to short the weakest batch of altcoins in the market. GCR stated that he was particularly interested in those tokens with the largest issuance in the first half of 2022.

The research team utilized various means to gather this information, not only by reviewing documents but also by analyzing on-chain wallets and even directly contacting project team members to understand their token issuance scale in 2022.

GCR later mentioned that many coins deemed particularly suitable for shorting by the DAO were either projects within the Solana ecosystem, which were funded by FTX and had a large number of tokens locked for investors; or metaverse-related coins that were excessively hyped by the market at the end of 2021.

However, GCR's most famous operation was publicly betting against LUNA's founder Do Kwon. On March 14, 2022, GCR proposed a $10 million bet to Do, wagering that the price of Terra Luna would be lower a year later. GCR successfully persuaded Do Kwon to bet $10 million of his own crypto, managed by a well-known account called @cobie.

GCR betting on LUNA's price decline

Although GCR successfully persuaded Do to bet $10 million directly with him, he wanted the scale of the bet to be larger, so he used derivatives on FTX to short $10 million worth of LUNA perpetual futures. Just two months later, on May 7, GCR revealed that the position had made a profit of $2.3 million.

GCR discussing his views on LUNA

Due to its unique nature, LUNA was very susceptible to selling pressure—it was used as the asset backing the UST "algorithmic stablecoin," whose value depended on the price that people were willing to pay for LUNA in the market. During most of the bull market, buyers willing to purchase LUNA could absorb all the funds flowing out of the UST system—it even withstood a "decoupling" event during the crypto market crash in May 2021. However, by May 2022, there were over $10 billion worth of UST in the LUNA system, compared to only $1 billion in 2021.

When UST was heavily sold in the market, holders of UST rushed to exchange it for LUNA and then sell it for real dollars. The large queue of people waiting to exchange UST for LUNA and sell it deterred other traders, and no one was willing to buy LUNA in the market—this caused LUNA's price to start plummeting.

Ultimately, LUNA's price nearly dropped to zero. GCR completely offset his risk on LUNA for just $0.72, effectively hedging his $20 million short position for less than a dollar.

GCR closing his short position on LUNA

As the 2022 bear market continued, GCR foresaw an increasing number of network attacks, scams, and frauds, which could come from bad actors or some project teams. As more decentralized finance (DeFi) projects were harmed due to code flaws, exploits, and re-entrancy attacks, GCR warned traders to pay special attention to incentive mechanisms during the bear market, using them as an important basis for investment decisions.

GCR's comments on scams and fraud during the bear market

By the end of 2022, GCR repeatedly shorted the remaining bullish momentum of Dogecoin (DOGE) and advised his followers to take breaks and vacations when market conditions were less optimistic. As the global price bottom for BTC approached at the end of the year, GCR reminded traders, "The macro economy will never give you an advantage; it never can… stick to what you understand."

On November 8, 2022, the FTX exchange collapsed due to massive outflows of customer deposits. The rapid outflow of funds was triggered after it was discovered that its sister company, Alameda Research, had been using user funds from the exchange to cover losses.

GCR repeatedly warned traders to pay attention to the safety of fund custody—during the bull market, numerous hacking attacks, scams, and wallet fund losses led him to call for more traders to choose top exchanges for fund custody. Unfortunately, he did not foresee the collapse of the second-largest exchange in the crypto space.

When FTX halted withdrawals, GCR wrote, "I hope that for the sake of the entire industry, the last part of my prophecy does not come true." But unfortunately, in the following three months, it was revealed that FTX itself had about $9 billion in debt and had allowed Alameda to use customer funds to cover losses for years. One item on their balance sheet? $7.3 million worth of "TRUMPLOSE" tokens. "I always thought they were hedging on Betfair," GCR posted online.

5. 2023 and Beyond: GCR's Predictions for the Future

After the collapse of FTX, GCR permanently stopped tweeting from the @GiganticRebirth account. His backup account @GCR Classic provided fewer individual trading updates and offered more general predictions for the future.

GCR's advice to crypto participants

During the crypto market's low point in 2022, GCR's most important advice may have been a reminder about the value of time: "No matter how much you have left now, the depth and breadth of your understanding of the market are extremely valuable." Even though he lost a significant amount of money on FTX, GCR remained optimistic about the future of crypto. He stated, "In an increasingly digital world, digital assets are essential." This tweet was posted on November 23, just two days after BTC's price fell to around $15,476.

As the market felt uncertain about the future of crypto, some startups began to shift their focus away from the industry. GCR proposed the idea that a "echo bubble" might emerge in 2023, which would appear after the last optimists in the market were completely eliminated. Interestingly, the overall recovery of the market in January 2023 actually laid the groundwork for BTC's cyclical bottom.

GCR's "echo bubble" theory

In early 2023, as the market gradually recovered, GCR seized the opportunity to explore some of his long-term beliefs and predictions about the future of crypto. In one of his earliest tweets of 2023, he pointed out that the next surge would be led by China: "Many future surges will occur on coins that no one in your circle knows about." Within a few months, the first BRC20 coin, ORDI, was deployed on the BTC network. By November, ORDI's market cap would reach $1 billion—largely thanks to its popularity among Asian exchanges and speculators.

GCR's belief in an Asia-driven bull market cycle

He remains optimistic about the future development of crypto, although with some pessimism and skepticism. In a tweet from May 2022, he predicted that humanity would become "more desperate, greedy, depraved, lonely, and trapped in the metaverse." Throughout 2023, he has maintained this viewpoint, as the crypto market slowly experienced various phases, including casino coins, meme coins, and even bizarre projects involving hamster racing. In 2023, the token of RLB, a top online casino in crypto, saw its valuation soar to a peak of $777 million but then fell by more than half.

GCR's casino theory

Since the end of 2021, GCR has predicted that the efficiency of the crypto market would significantly improve. He believes that there are many reasons for this improvement, such as top university graduates flocking to the field, a more mature regulatory framework, and strict controls over privacy protocols and private crypto. Although it is generally believed that trading in the crypto space can remain somewhat anonymous, GCR reminds everyone not to mistakenly think that any behavior on the blockchain is private.

GCR's views on talent development in the future of crypto

He has shown a keen interest in the 2024 U.S. presidential election—betting heavily on Donald Trump since the end of 2021, believing he will be the ultimate winner. He stated, "The dumbest and the smartest people know Trump will win easily," as the former U.S. president remained in the public eye throughout 2023 with a series of eye-catching stunts, including voluntarily surrendering to the Fulton County jail in Georgia on August 23.

GCR's views on Trump's 2024 campaign

In the first three months of 2023, GCR invested in over 300 tokens from the NFT project "Milady," despite some insiders in the crypto space finding the project a bit odd. About three months later, after Elon Musk posted a meme related to this NFT project on Twitter, GCR sold about half of his tokens. Nevertheless, he still holds Milady tokens worth over $890,000 in his public wallet address ezekielx.eth.

GCR purchasing Milady on BLUR

A month before GCR left Twitter, Silicon Valley Bank collapsed. This led to a temporary decoupling of one of the largest stablecoins in crypto, USDC, whose value briefly dropped to $0.88. This event did not affect GCR—he exchanged a total of $4 million in USDT for USDC on-chain.

GCR's stablecoin trading

On Twitter, GCR expressed his views, believing that in the digital age, crypto will inevitably be widely adopted. He said, "People will seek an alternative, a new path."

GCR's comments on the future of finance

His last tweet from the GCRClassic account was very positive, stating, "They will continue to print more money." He also mentioned, "Ethereum will one day reach $10,000."

GCR's final tweet and his prediction for Ethereum prices

A week later, he liked a tweet from someone else that said, "See you when ETH hits $10,000." After that, he never appeared again.