Crypto Twitter is back

There hasn’t been much to celebrate in crypto recently, but a mid-week algorithm adjustment on X, the industry’s most popular social media network, is cause for legitimate celebration. Crypto Twitter (CT) is back.

Six months ago, some members of CT decided X Head of Product Nikita Bier had murdered their social network. This week, he resurrected it, and the same crowd is overjoyed.

Bier shipped an algo change this week that he called a “tweak to boost visibility of your posts to your mutuals (people who you follow back).” That algo change is seeing X users “sending double our average of original posts & replies,” Bier disclosed.

Many users first noticed its impact on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The reply section, he wrote, had been feeling like “a battleground with people you don’t recognize.” The change pushes mutuals and more familiar accounts, especially people a user follows, back into the main feeds of the X website and app.

The reaction from crypto influencers was immediate and euphoric.

A rare moment of joy for Crypto Twitter

Influencers were first to notice the change, especially the Bitcoin element of CT.

Joe Consorti saluted, “Welcome back, Bitcoin Twitter.” Bitcoin Archive cheered, “Bitcoin Twitter is back… Let me know if you’re still here!” and drew 1,800 likes.

Meanwhile, a Bitcoin conference promoter rhetorically wondered whether any Bitcoiners could see his post, earning over 1,400 likes.

Soon, brands seized the opportunity for engagement. Coinbase posted, “Like this post to put crypto twitter back on your feed” to more than 4,000 likes.

MoonPay went all caps, declaring “BREAKING: CRYPTO TWITTER IS BACK.” Ledger asked followers, “what’s up with crypto twitter.”

Others treated the feed as a resurrection machine. Layah Heilpern marveled at seeing “crypto accounts that I haven’t seen in years,” then accused X of having “basically shadow banned all of crypto twitter” with prior algorithmic changes.

One user put it plainly, “They fixed the algo.”

For the summer, the algorithm is un-breaking. The reverse chronological feed is making a comeback.

‘Double our average of original posts & replies’

Bier claims that, aside from giving feedback, he hasn’t modified the algorithm significantly since joining X, placing responsibility mostly on xAI.

This week’s change was among the first experiments that he championed himself.

The test went live on a Friday and shipped late Monday.

The mutuals signal of followers had simply downranked, which is why friends and mutual follows appeared less in replies. Restoring it, he argued, would help “clusters form around interests more easily, which many people have asked for.”

The self-reported scoreboard after pushing the algo change was modest. Bier listed replies up 3.15%, original posts up 1.8%, and small-account reach up 1.19%.

Then came the critical anecdote and a percentage increase in the triple digits.

After an X user posted that she had replied to more posts in one day this week than in the prior three months, Bier answered that users were “sending double our average of original posts & replies.”

It was a rebirth announcement for CT.

Crypto Twitter battled, now applauds Nikita Bier

The celebration is remarkable mostly because the same community spent January eviscerating Bier.

Protos documented how CT momentarily decided Bier had killed their area of the social network. That same incident captured a viral claim that he considered “gm,” a common greeting within CT, as a waste of reach.

Critics dismissed Bier as unable to fix his own product.

Moreover, as Protos reported, a January algorithm change coincided with crypto posting volume briefly exploding from a few hundred thousand a day to more than 13 million, as bot armies flooded onto the X timeline.

Elon Musk vowed to publish a code fix within a week. CT members blamed Bier for the failure.

The complaint that the feed was rigged persisted over the past few months. Even if accounts were never banned outright, many members of CT searched for evidence of shadow bans and other algorithmic deprioritization of crypto content.

They felt outranked by strangers outside of the industry that the X algorithm preferred.

Relieved, Bitcoiners and other members of CT now see more posts from the people they follow. The algo is prioritizing a reverse chronological feed of followed users and mutuals for the first time in many years.

X spaces host Wicked Bitcoin admitted that X is back, alongside countless other posts with hundreds of likes apiece.