No one has ever thought that the protests in Hong Kong would ever affect the price of cryptocurrencies trading in U.S. crypto exchanges. But apparently, there is still some impact; at least on Nike’s Air Jordan tokens (such as AJBT, AJCP, AJIB and more) listed on the crypto exchange 55.com.
Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Association (NBA), conveyed his support to the pro-democracy Hong Kong protesters through Twitter and attracted thousands of pro-China troll mobs. Subsequently, he deleted the controversial tweet almost instantly.
Now Reuters reports that since Daryl Morey’s infamous tweet supporting the Hong Kong protests, a sharp drop has been reported (about 35% to be exact) in the price of crypto tokens backed by Nike’s Air Jordan sneakers listed on the U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange.
A Chinese trader has posted about this sharp decline on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter, and told Reuters that the fall was about 10% at the time of him writing the post. The post, published by unknown Chinese traders, went viral on Weibo attracting thousands of users to share their opinion on the matter.
The trader, who refused to reveal his identity, told Reuters that such fall is nothing new in highly volatile crypto market, “But it’s clear sneaker speculators were pulling money out of the market,” he said. Chinese state media and pro-China accounts on Twitter reacted furiously to the Tweet by Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey, he added.
Chinese state media accused all three – the NBA, Houston Rockets and Daryl Morey – for provoking “violence and peddling a secessionist pipe dream.”
The price of tokens backed by the Air Jordan 1 Retro High Satin Black Toe shoes witnessed over a 34% sharp decline since Morey’s comment. This is how Chinese investors, who are highly active in U.S. crypto exchanges, responded Morey’s open support for the Hong Kong protests, by pulling money out of the Air Jordan sneakers backed tokens.
Not only Chinese investors, but several sneaker influencers in China have also bashed Morey’s comment. Hong Kong-based George Gao, a sneaker influencer said that the anger of basketball fans in mainland China has been “unprecedented.” One sneaker fan in the southern city of Guangzhou said that he would ban any anti-Chinese brands, and that political factors do affect his choices while making new purchases.
“Political factors do affect my choice,” said Chen Luwei, a Chinese sneaker fan studying in Australia. “If there is any insulting speech by Nike or Adidas, it may affect my decision to buy their shoes. But I can’t just throw away my previous ones, right?”
