The Bitcoin community is buzzing with the news that the famous seasonal sandwich, #McDonalds , McRib, will return to stores in the US this Tuesday. What’s special is that this move has been publicly linked by McDonald's CEO to the price fluctuations of Bitcoin, reminiscent of the strong growth moments that have occurred in the past.
The price of Bitcoin rose slightly on Monday, just as McDonald’s prepares for the return of McRib in the US, reflecting the previous increase that was recorded with the appearance of this sandwich last year.
For many years, the appearance of the McRib has been unofficially linked to strong growth phases of leading digital assets by market capitalization, as well as stock indices like the S&P 500.
McDonald's Chief Marketing Officer Confirms Correlation
This interesting correlation has been mentioned by McDonald’s Senior Marketing Director, Guillaume Huin. He shared on X on Monday that the fan-favorite sandwich with BBQ pork flavor has "recently found new meaning on the Internet within the trading and cryptocurrency community."
Guillaume Huin emphasized: "Some people claim that Bitcoin and the S&P 500 tend to perform well after the McRib comes back, especially in the years 2017, 2020, 2021. Coincidentally, when the McRib returns to stores in December 2024, Bitcoin had reached a new all-time high."
Last year, the return of the McRib coincided with the time when U.S. President Donald Trump was re-elected, unleashing "animal spirits" in the crypto market, pushing Bitcoin above the $100,000 mark for the first time. This year, the sandwich returned as the 40-day government shutdown showed signs of ending, leading to a price surge for Bitcoin and other top assets the previous Sunday.
The McRib Revival and Contrarian Responses
According to Huin, the McRib will return to restaurants nationwide starting Tuesday, but it will only be available for a limited time, as is tradition since the dish first appeared in 1981.
The correlation between the return of the McRib and the Bitcoin price surge, while beloved by many, remains a trend "distant from certainty." For example, in 2018 and 2022, the return of the McRib occurred just before Bitcoin's price fell sharply, down to $3,250 and $15,500, respectively.
An unofficial study from 2011 titled “A Conspiracy of Hogs” even suggested that if #McRib correlates with anything, it likely relates to the decline in wholesale pork prices, a purely supply chain factor.
In the crypto community, the concept of "McRib Season" (McRib SZN) has been widely popularized by an anonymous X user named Internbrah, who works on the Monad blockchain team. Internbrah once hypothesized that this sandwich only truly impacts the market when it returns to the U.S., not in other international markets like the UK.
As of Monday, Bitcoin was trading around $105,600, up 1% from the previous day. This means that the price of Bitcoin has increased by 6% from $98,800, marking the last time the so-called "McRib Season" officially began. Whether coincidental or an interesting indicator, the return of the McRib has certainly provided a humorous and optimistic discussion topic for the crypto market.
