Most crypto influencers become famous for one persona. Murad became famous twice, for two personas that directly contradict each other. First as one of Bitcoin’s most hardcore maximalists, then as the prophet of the memecoin supercycle. Understanding that transformation explains half of what happened in meme coin markets since 2024.
New traders keep asking the same question: who is Murad, and why does one man’s coin list move billions in market cap? Here is the full story.
Who Is Murad?
Murad Mahmudov is a crypto investor and analyst who posts as @MustStopMurad on X. He is the creator of the “memecoin supercycle” thesis and the loudest evangelist behind SPX6900, one of the strangest success stories in meme coin history.
The short version:
- Crypto investor and former Goldman Sachs analyst, in crypto since the mid-2010s
- Originally famous as a hardcore Bitcoin maximalist and on-chain researcher
- Reinvented himself in 2024 as the leading voice of the memecoin supercycle
- Creator of “Murad’s List,” a set of meme coin picks that moved entire markets
- Turned roughly $1.9 million into over $70 million in paper profits at the peak, mostly through SPX6900
People pay attention to Murad for a simple reason: when he named his list at Token2049 in September 2024, several of those coins multiplied within weeks. Attention like that compounds.
How Did Murad Become Famous?
His path runs through elite finance, Bitcoin ideology, a failed fund, and total reinvention.
Elite finance origins. Murad grew up in Azerbaijan and attended Princeton University. A 2013 exchange year in China introduced him to Bitcoin, and he entered crypto seriously around 2016. After Princeton, he took a job at Goldman Sachs, then left in 2018 to go full-time into crypto research.
The Bitcoin maximalist era. In 2018 and 2019, Murad built his first following as an on-chain analyst and Bitcoin purist. He appeared on major crypto podcasts, published deep valuation research, and argued that essentially everything other than Bitcoin was noise. He also co-founded a crypto fund, Adaptive Capital, which shut down in 2020 after the COVID crash wrecked its positions. He then went largely quiet for two years.
The reinvention. Murad returned to public view in 2022 with a thesis that stunned everyone who knew his maximalist era: meme coins, not Bitcoin, would deliver the biggest gains of the coming cycle. He framed meme coins as “tokenized communities” and digital cults, where shared belief itself is the product.
Token2049 and the supercycle. His breakout moment came in September 2024 at the Token2049 conference in Singapore, where he presented the “Memecoin Supercycle” thesis on stage. He argued that culture, community, and virality would beat technology and fundamentals, the same way ICOs defined 2017 and DeFi defined 2020. The presentation went viral, and “supercycle” became the defining meme coin narrative of that cycle.
Murad’s List. He backed the thesis with named picks: SPX6900, GIGA, MOG, APU, POPCAT and others. His top conviction, SPX6900, traded around one cent when he crowned it his favorite. Within a month, it approached a dollar. That single call minted a generation of believers and cemented his influence.
Why Does Murad Move Markets?
Murad’s market influence works differently from streamers like Threadguy or callers like Ansem. His weapon is conviction, repeated endlessly.
One thesis, hammered daily. Where most influencers spray dozens of calls, Murad narrowed to a handful of coins, then eventually to one. He posts about SPX6900 with religious consistency, in bull markets and crashes alike. That repetition builds cult-strength communities around his picks.
Skin in the game, visible on-chain. His wallets are public knowledge, and holders can watch that he has not sold. On-chain data showed roughly $1.86 million invested growing to over $70 million in unrealized profit at the peak. Diamond-handing nine figures of paper gains is the ultimate marketing for a “never sell” community.
Belief as the product. His thesis explicitly says meme coins are vessels of faith, not tech products. So his content sells belief itself, which makes every holder a co-marketer. It is a self-reinforcing loop, and he designed it openly.
The flip side applies here too. Communities built on belief are spectacular on the way up and brutal on the way down, because there are no fundamentals to catch the falling knife.
What Is Murad’s List?
“Murad’s List” refers to the meme coins he named as supercycle picks in 2024: SPX6900 as the crown jewel, alongside coins like GIGA, MOG, APU, and POPCAT. Over time, he concentrated his public conviction almost entirely into SPX6900, a satirical token built around “flipping” the S&P 500.
Several list coins produced enormous runs after his endorsement. Several also drew down 80% or more from their highs afterward. Both facts belong in the same sentence, because together they are the honest summary of meme coin investing. If you want to understand how to evaluate coins like these yourself, start with our cornerstone guide on what makes a good meme coin.
Has Murad Been Right?
This is the genuinely fascinating question, because the answer depends entirely on when you check.
The case that he called it. SPX6900 rose over 10,500% in the year after his endorsement, briefly making it one of the best-performing assets on the planet. His Token2049 thesis correctly predicted that meme coins would dominate attention and returns during that stretch of the cycle. On paper, he turned under $2 million into over $70 million. Few public calls in crypto history worked that spectacularly.
The case that the supercycle ended. Meme coin markets cooled hard afterward. SPX6900 fell more than 80% from its highs, and most list coins fared worse. The “supercycle” increasingly looks like a powerful but ordinary cycle: a narrative that ran, peaked, and mean-reverted like every narrative before it. Murad kept preaching through the drawdown, which believers call conviction and critics call bag-holding with extra steps.
The failed fund matters too. His Adaptive Capital fund collapsed in 2020. That is worth remembering whenever anyone treats him as infallible. Murad has been spectacularly right and badly wrong in the same career, which makes him exactly like every other trader, just with better branding.
Criticism
Murad attracts intense criticism, arguably more pointed than any other figure in this series.
- The maximalist flip. Bitcoin veterans consider his transformation opportunistic: the man who preached sound money for years now evangelizes frog coins. He frames it as updating his thesis. Critics frame it as following the exit liquidity.
- Front-running allegations. Blockchain investigator ZachXBT publicized Murad’s wallets and alleged patterns of buying tokens shortly before promoting them, including one purchase reportedly made an hour before he announced holding 1% of a token’s supply. Murad did not publicly respond to those specific claims. No charges or formal actions resulted, but the episode hangs over his “transparency” branding.
- The exit question. His entire mystique rests on never selling. Skeptics point out that a holder with his position size cannot exit without crashing the very communities he built, which makes “never selling” as much a trap as a choice. Whenever he does sell, thousands of followers will be behind him in the queue.
- Selling belief to retail. The deepest criticism is structural: his thesis explicitly markets faith over fundamentals to an audience of small traders, and faith-based assets have historically ended one way for late buyers.
Keep the neutral version in mind: nothing Murad has done is illegal by any public finding, his conviction appears genuine, and nobody forced anyone to buy. The criticism is about influence and incentives, not fraud.
Should Beginners Follow Murad?
Murad is worth studying and dangerous to imitate. The distinction matters.
- Study the narrative machine. His supercycle thesis is genuinely insightful about how attention, community, and belief drive meme coin prices. Understanding it will make you a better trader even if you never touch his coins.
- Do not inherit his conviction. His position cost him under $2 million he could afford to lose, bought at prices 100x below where his followers entered. Copying his diamond hands at your entry price is a completely different trade with completely different math.
- Research every coin yourself. Community strength is real, but so are drawdowns of 80% and worse. Check liquidity, holder concentration, and your own risk tolerance before believing anything.
The pattern across this whole series repeats here: influencers profit from positions established before you ever heard the name. Being their audience and being their exit are uncomfortably close cousins.
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My Take
I have never crossed paths with Murad, but I remember both versions of him vividly, because I have been in this market since 2013. The 2018 Murad wrote some of the sharpest Bitcoin research of that era. Watching that same mind resurface years later preaching frog coin supercycles was one of the strangest character arcs crypto has produced, and crypto produces a lot of them.
Here is what I will give him: he understood earlier than almost anyone that meme coins are attention assets, and that community belief is the entire product. That insight was correct and valuable. The supercycle framing, though, did what every super-anything framing does in this industry. It convinced retail that this time the cycle would not end. Cycles always end. I DCA into Bitcoin on a schedule precisely because I stopped trusting anyone’s conviction, including my own.
The never-selling thing is the part I would watch closely. A public position that size is not a portfolio, it is a performance, and performances need an ending eventually. When it comes, it will teach more people about meme coins than any thesis presentation ever did.
Fun fact: half these meme KOLs now trade on Fomo with their X connected, so anyone can watch, or copy, every new trade they make.
Final Words
Murad’s story runs from Princeton to Goldman Sachs to Bitcoin purism to memecoin prophecy, with a failed fund and a $70 million paper windfall along the way. Whatever you conclude about him, his supercycle thesis reshaped how an entire cycle of traders thought about meme coins, and SPX6900’s rise will be studied for years.
Treat his ideas as market education and his conviction as his own. For more on how these attention games work in practice, read our profiles of Ansem and Threadguy, the other voices moving these markets.
If you enjoyed this one, check out our other meme coin related content.
As always, don’t forget to claim your bonus on Bybit EU below. See you next time!
FAQ
Who is Murad in crypto?
Murad Mahmudov is a crypto investor and influencer, posting as @MustStopMurad on X. A former Goldman Sachs analyst and Bitcoin maximalist, he became famous for his “memecoin supercycle” thesis and his massive public bet on SPX6900.
What is the memecoin supercycle?
The memecoin supercycle is Murad’s thesis, presented at Token2049 Singapore in 2024, that meme coins driven by culture, community, and belief would outperform traditional crypto assets during the cycle. Meme coins did dominate that period before the sector corrected sharply.
What is Murad’s List?
Murad’s List refers to the meme coins Murad publicly endorsed as supercycle picks, including SPX6900, GIGA, MOG, APU, and POPCAT. SPX6900 was his top conviction and delivered a rise of over 10,500% before drawing down heavily from its highs.
What is Murad’s net worth?
His exact net worth is unknown. On-chain data in 2025 showed roughly $1.86 million invested in meme coins growing to over $70 million in unrealized profit at the peak, mostly from SPX6900. Those figures move dramatically with meme coin prices.
Did Murad sell his SPX6900?
His public wallets suggest he has held his core SPX6900 position through both the rise and the drawdowns, consistent with his “never selling” messaging. On-chain observers track his wallets closely for any change.
Was Murad a Bitcoin maximalist?
Yes. From roughly 2018 to 2019, Murad was one of crypto’s most prominent Bitcoin maximalists, known for deep on-chain research and dismissing altcoins. His pivot to meme coins in the 2024 cycle remains one of the most debated reinventions in crypto.
Where is Murad from?
Murad Mahmudov is originally from Azerbaijan. He studied at Princeton University in the United States and discovered Bitcoin during a 2013 exchange year in China.
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