Buy the Dip, aka Buy the F*cking Dip or BTFD, is a piece of financial advice shared widely among investors during downward trends in the economic market.
The message behind it implies that participants in the market should double down on a poorly performing asset in the hopes that it will recover, leading to a profit. The phrase became part of the lexicon in the crypto community in the early 2010s, particularly at times when coins would fall in value. The saying is particularly popular in online meme stock ($stonk) groups.
The exact source of "Buy the Dip" is unknown, but it has been a catchphrase among investors long before the existence of the internet. The phrase appeared in articles in financial publications such as Forbes and The Wall Street Journal as far back as the ‘90s.
With the prominence of internet-based investment communities and the rise of crypto, 'Buy the Dip' became a frequently repeated phrase whenever the value of a stock dropped, especially when an eventual recovery was expected—or hoped for.
Among its earliest online uses was an entry to Urban Dictionary by user Cocomaan from February 28th, 2011. The phrase was credited to the “quantitative easing” period, in which an easy money policy conducted by the Federal Reserve encouraged investors to buy, even when the market was faltering. The exact entry for “Buy the F*cking Dip” reads as follows:
"To purchase a stock or commodity during a price decline. Became popular during the post-housing bubble quantitative easing trend, where stocks were guaranteed to rise until a new dawn of American capitalism magically occurred or, alternatively, the money supply exploded resulting in uncontrollable inflation."
The phrase began its true internet prominence on March 1st, 2014, when YouTuber Gerald Pontificus posted a video titled, “Buy the Dip.” The clip featured two superheroes discussing buying the dip and garnered over 500k views over ten years.
Throughout the rest of the 2010s, it was increasingly used among the crypto community, such as on Reddit’s /r/bitcoinmemes. “Buy the Dip” especially became a prominent phrase when cryptocurrency was in its early, volatile days.
By 2020, the prominence of meme stocks and the more mainstream use of cryptocurrency transformed the phrase into a meme. “Buy the dip” even became the subject of memes shared by larger online investment communities, such as /r/wallstreetbets.
Cryptocurrency hit a major downturn in value by 2022. As of August 2024, 'Buy the Dip' memes became commonplace among those still faithful to crypto across the internet.
Interestingly, Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s President, announced in an extremely meme post that the Central American country had “bought the dip,” doubling down on the position he had staked out to declare El Salvador as the only country on Earth to exclusively use Bitcoin.
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