gm, short for "good morning", is an informal greeting used across cryptocurrency and NFT social media, almost always written in lower case. People post it at any hour, to their followers or in reply to others, and the habit has become a ritual that signals belonging to the community and a positive mood.
The abbreviation itself is old internet shorthand, but in crypto it took on a cultural meaning of its own during the 2021 NFT boom. It is often paired with "gn" (good night) and with slogans such as "WAGMI" ("we're all gonna make it"). It is slang, carries no technical meaning and is used in a friendly, often ironic tone.
gm in plain terms
Think of regulars at a neighbourhood café who greet each other every morning by name. The greeting says little in itself, but it marks who belongs and keeps the group friendly.
Crypto social media works like a global café that never closes. Since people are in every time zone, "gm" is posted at all hours, and replying "gm" back is a quick way to say "I'm part of this crowd too".
Origin and spread
"gm" as a shorthand for good morning appears in online slang dictionaries from the early 2000s. Meme trackers date the first crypto-related uses on Twitter to around 2018, among early NFT collectors. The greeting spread rapidly in early 2021 as NFT trading and profile picture NFT collections took off, and by late 2021 it was common enough to be both celebrated and mocked by commentators outside crypto. Projects, exchanges and founders adopted it in their posts, and some apps and communities built their branding around the word.
- gn. "Good night", used to sign off, often during calm markets.
- WAGMI and NGMI. "We're all gonna make it" and "not gonna make it", expressions of shared optimism or of doubt about someone's decisions.
- IYKYK. "If you know, you know", used for in-jokes and cryptic hints.
- When Lambo and When Moon. Jokey questions about when prices will rise.
- Goblin Town. A meme for depressed markets, the opposite mood to a cheerful gm.
What the term says about market psychology
The gm ritual reflects how much of crypto runs on community and attention. Tokens and NFT collections depend on people noticing them, and a daily greeting keeps accounts visible and builds a sense of shared identity, similar to the loyalty seen among HODLers or Bitcoin maximalists.
That same sense of belonging can lower people's guard. A friendly, close-knit feed makes it harder to question popular projects, and promoters use the tone of the community to market tokens, sometimes through paid shilling or influencers. Scammers also open conversations with casual greetings in direct messages, a common first step in social engineering and pig butchering schemes. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission warns that social media can create a false impression of consensus around an investment, which can feed FOMO.