gm." On September 24, the convicted FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) posted this brief two-letter message from his X account. Despite being in prison, the tweet quickly ignited the market, causing the price of FTT tokens to surge from $0.80 to $1.21, with a single-day increase of nearly 45%.
Subsequently, the account clarified that this post was sent by a friend of SBF, but the frenzy has already ignited: FTT trading volume surged nearly sixfold, skyrocketing from about $10.4 million to $59 million. This farce once again highlights the wild swings in the cryptocurrency market between headlines and fundamentals.
01 Two words stir up a thousand layers of waves, SBF’s "gm" tweet and the roller coaster market of FTT.
On Tuesday morning local time, SBF’s long-dormant X account suddenly came back to life, posting the common greeting "gm" (an abbreviation for good morning) in the crypto community. This move immediately sparked widespread speculation, as prisoners in federal prisons in the United States are not supposed to have direct access to social media.
The market reacted quickly and violently. The price of FTT surged nearly 60% within 12 minutes, reaching a peak of $1.20-$1.23 at one point. Even after subsequent clarification that the tweet was not posted by SBF himself, FTT still maintained a gain of about 25%, with the trading price hovering around $1.014.
On-chain data provider The Tie reports that on-chain activity for FTT surged sharply after the tweet was posted: the number of active addresses reached 201, far exceeding the monthly average of 56; deposits on centralized exchanges doubled to 13 times, while withdrawals increased fourfold to 38 times.
This is not the first time that SBF’s account has caused market fluctuations while in prison. In February 2024, after two years of silence, his account posted for the first time, also triggering a brief rebound in FTT. This cyclical phenomenon indicates that even when decoupled from the fundamentals, market sentiment can still drive price fluctuations of highly speculative assets.
02 The Reality Behind Speculation: SBF’s Life in Prison and the Progress of FTX’s Bankruptcy
Currently, SBF is being held at the Terminal Island Federal Correctional Institution in California. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison in March 2024 for seven counts of fraud and conspiracy, with officials estimating that he may be eligible for parole as early as October 2044.
According to the regulations of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, inmates are typically only allowed to use the TRULINCS system—a monitored text-only messaging system—to communicate with approved contacts. The use of mobile phones or direct access to the internet is strictly prohibited, and violations may result in solitary confinement or the deduction of "good time."
In contrast to the frenzy in the FTT market, the liquidation of FTX’s bankruptcy estate is steadily progressing. The FTX recovery trust plan distributed $1.6 billion to creditors on September 30, marking the third significant payment since the exchange’s collapse at the end of 2022.
At the same time, the FTX estate is suing Genesis Digital Assets to recover $1.1 billion in priority payments. These actual actions stand in stark contrast to the market speculation surrounding FTT, highlighting the disconnect between the token and real business.
03 Reactions from the Crypto Community: Anger, Humor, and Risk Warnings
The reaction of the crypto community to SBF’s tweet is mixed. On-chain investigator ZachXBT angrily stated that SBF "deserves zero human rights," considering the harm caused to investors by the FTX collapse. This comment reflects the community’s ongoing resentment towards the FTX crash.
On the other hand, industry participants displayed black humor. BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes jokingly responded, "Wen memecoin?", mocking the speculative nature and meme-driven characteristics of price volatility. Journalist Laura Shin commented, "This is so 2021", poking fun at SBF’s sudden social media activity.
Market analysts generally believe that such increases lack sustainability. FTT, once a utility token used for trading fee discounts and staking rewards on the FTX exchange, has essentially lost its core functions since the platform’s collapse in November 2022.
Technical indicators show that the RSI of FTT once surged into the overbought zone, while the MACD diverged from the price, suggesting that momentum is difficult to sustain. This price fluctuation driven by sentiment reflects more of the market’s irrational characteristics than any improvement in the fundamentals.
04 Gate: Building a Sustainable Crypto Ecosystem and a New Paradigm for Value Investment
As the market stirred due to a "gm" tweet, Gate launched the high-performance Layer 2 network Gate Layer on September 25, with GT serving as the sole gas fee token. This initiative aims to provide users and developers with "low threshold, high efficiency, and low cost" on-chain services, costing only about 30 yuan for every 1 million transactions.
At the same time, Gate has implemented a comprehensive upgrade of the GT token economy, making GT the exclusive Gas token of Gate Layer and continuing its dual deflationary model. This upgrade incorporates GT into practical application scenarios, contrasting sharply with tokens that rely solely on market sentiment.
On the same day, Gate also announced the launch of spot trading for the Plasma (XPL) token. Plasma is a high-performance Layer 1 blockchain tailored for stablecoins, and this new listing further enriches the platform’s asset diversity.
Unlike the patterns that rely on controversial figures or fleeting hotspots, Gate provides investors with fundamentally based value investment opportunities through continuous technological construction and ecological expansion. While the market fluctuates due to SBF’s tweets, Gate’s initiatives demonstrate a shift in the industry towards pragmatic development.
Future Outlook
In the future, as the appeal process of SBF advances (with the oral arguments scheduled for November 4, 2025), the market may experience fluctuations due to related news. However, a truly mature cryptocurrency market will gradually free itself from excessive focus on controversial figures and shift towards projects and technologies that genuinely create value.
With the support of platforms like Gate, the crypto industry is moving from casino-like speculation to building truly useful financial infrastructure. All of this indicates that the future of blockchain lies not in someone’s tweet, but in its ability to solve real problems.
