Bitcoin really likes full moons. That’s one of the things I learned from delving into the world of Bitcoin astrology.
Bitcoin is a digital currency, run on a blockchain system, with a highly volatile price. Earlier this month, it hit a new high of more than $63,000. So how can it have a favourite lunar phase?
Many have tried to crack the pattern of what makes it go up and down, with varying degrees of success. And it turns out that astrologers are no exception. When they track the patterns of the cryptocurrency against the movements of the heavens, they find some interesting correlations.
The Nostradamus of cryptocurrency
Seattle-based Robert Weinstein has been following Bitcoin’s astrological patterns since 2017, and shares public predictions on his Twitter @AstroCryptoGuru, where he goes by the moniker “Crypto Damus”, an allusion to the 16th-century figure Nostradamus, whose prophecies reputedly predicted world events.
When I come to talk to Robert myself (he kindly forgives my mix-up over our first scheduled interview time, noting that Mercury is in retrograde), he is patient about explaining the way it works.
The basic concept is this: anything that has a birthday can have an astrological birth chart, and can therefore be forecasted to some extent.
Bitcoin has several inception dates attached to it, but its birthday is most commonly celebrated on 3 January. This is the date when, in 2009, the currency’s mysterious creator known as Satoshi Nakamoto, created the “genesis block”, thereby beginning the Bitcoin network.
Robert uses this date as Bitcoin’s “birth” and works out where the planets were at this time. Usually, one would also factor in a location, but as nobody knows where Satoshi was, Robert omits this. He then observes the movements of the planets and what they might mean for Bitcoin, looking for signs of how it will move, and whether it will encounter challenges.
The music and mood of Bitcoin
He does not claim to be able to predict exact prices, but is instead looking for indications that it will go up or down.
“We’re looking at whether Bitcoin is in a good mood today, or in a bad mood today – is it bitchy? Is it moody? Is it happy? Is it feeling abundant and prosperous? Does it have a hot date tonight?”
In my own attempts to understand crypto astrology, this was the biggest barrier I came up against: do the planets influence the people trading Bitcoin, or do they influence Bitcoin itself, as an independent entity?
“We don’t believe the planet is actually causing Bitcoin to go down,” says Robert. “It’s a correlation. It’s the study of energy patterns.”
Christeen Skinner, a leading financial astrologer based in London, offers another way of thinking about it when I give her a call for more background on the wider practice.
“The way that I hear it is that there are very definitely vibrations, and we all respond to the vibrations in different ways, in the same ways as the moon cycle affects women – and in fact everybody.
“When you start to talk about the planets, these are cycles with which most people are unfamiliar. But they are still playing tunes. So different generations will respond to different planetary chords.”
Financial astrology
Christeen has been a financial astrologer for 30 years, and has written several books on the subject. She says that the overlap between astrology and money goes back millennia, from ancient people looking for signs of how their crops would fare to 1930s traders looking for an edge in the post-crash markets.
“This is nothing new,” she says. “What’s new is that we’re now using it in areas that weren’t around then.”
But the entrance of cryptocurrencies onto the scene has given financial astrologers something completely new to get their teeth into. With Bitcoin, it seems a particularly natural pairing; the mysterious origins of the currency and its unpredictable price movements hold some of the same attractions for followers as puzzling out the planets does.
Robert has led the way in this specific field. Some of his early successes came when he called Bitcoin’s price dip in late January and early February of 2018. What were the signs?
“Saturn, which represents difficulties, obstacles, limitations scarcity and fear, was conjunct the bitcoin natal sun,” he explains. “The sun in the inception chart is kind of the basic life force and identity of whatever it is you’re looking at.
“So that clearly indicated a low point in the confidence and vitality.”
He has got some calls wrong though, and says that these were generally the result of either his own biases or of the inscrutability of certain signs. Uranus, for example, is famously difficult to read.
As his practice has developed, he has incorporated more elements borrowed from mainstream stock market traders
“We’re just integrating astrological factors as another technical indicator that we integrate, together with other traditional technical indicators. ”
The audience
It may surprise you to know that the people following this analysis are not all astrology aficionados. In fact, Christeen says that interest mostly comes from people already interested in finance.
“Astrologers tend not to buy financial software,” she says. “But the people who buy the financial software quite often will invest in an astrological software.”
She herself learned the ropes of financial astrology from traders in the City of London. “I met this group of bankers in the City. One of them carried about an ephemeris [a booklet showing the trajectory of astronomical objects], so he knew where Mercury was and where the moon was, and he was using it for trading.”
The tradition has evolved, as cryptocurrency enthusiasts begin to discover astrology. Robert says that the main interest in his work appears to come from people who are primarily crypto-traders, looking for something that may give them an edge. They come from a range of places and backgrounds. “I have subscribers and consultation clients everywhere from Sydney and Melbourne to Bangladesh, and around the States, in Israel, it’s everywhere.”
He also points to the way the internet has made this kind of thing available to a wider range of people. Being able to use apps and websites to instantly generate birth charts, something which you would need the right knowledge and mathematical skills to draw up in the past, is putting astrology in the hands of many.
And notably, the same thing is happening in finance: greater accessibility of information, the ease of using apps, and the sense of something that was previously limited to a small elite being opened up. We have seen this demonstrated most recently – and dramatically – by the Gamestop phenomenon. Just as astrology has become easier for casual followers to integrate into their daily lives, so trading has been opened up to the masses.
The next generation
As these technological advances put astrology and trading into the hands of more people, especially young people, so new financial astrologers are emerging online. The biggest new star is Maren Altman, a 22-year-old who has 1 million followers on TikTok.
Maren’s swift rise to popularity indicates that there is a strong demand for this type of content, which not only combines cryptocurrency analysis with astrology, but which gets it across in a visual medium with the help of memes, comedy, and Instagram-friendly aesthetics.
Robert says that the growing interest in astrology among millennials and Generation Z is all about how rapidly it has become accessible.
“Astrology’s an esoteric tradition of ancient wisdom that’s never really been accessible to the masses. It’s always been kind of like a secret initiate type of a thing.
“And that’s changing a little bit now. This is the biggest Renaissance in astrology since the 1970s, and it’s way bigger than that, because of computer technology.”
