Carlos Matos is the investor whose viral 2018 speech at a Bitconnect conference in Thailand became one of crypto’s most enduring memes. His exclamation “Hey hey hey! Wassup Bitconnect!” — delivered with theatrical enthusiasm to a cheering crowd — captured both the absurd energy of the 2017–2018 bull market and the genuine human tragedy of retail investors who lost their savings in the Bitconnect Ponzi scheme.
The Speech
In October 2017, Carlos Matos — a New York-based investor — took the stage at Bitconnect’s annual conference in Pattaya, Thailand, and delivered an impassioned, high-energy speech about his experience with the platform. He spoke enthusiastically about financial freedom and his belief in Bitconnect’s lending platform before breaking into a rallying cry:
“Hey hey hey! Wassup Bitconnect! My name is Carlos Matos and I want to tell you something! Bitconneeeeeect!”
The crowd erupted. The clip went viral. Within months, Bitconnect had collapsed.
The Context: Bitconnect
Bitconnect was a lending and exchange platform that promised extraordinary daily returns (around 1%) on investments made in its token BCC through a proprietary “trading bot.” It was widely suspected of being a Ponzi scheme — its returns were not economically plausible, and its structure required constant new investment to pay existing investors.
In January 2018, Bitconnect shut down its exchange and lending operations following cease-and-desist orders from US state regulators. BCC collapsed from a high of over $400 to nearly zero within days. Investors lost an estimated $3.45 billion total.
Carlos Matos had invested — and lost money in — Bitconnect. His speech was given before the collapse.
The Meme and Its Meaning
The clip spread virally across YouTube and Twitter, where it became shorthand for retail crypto mania — the uncritical enthusiasm, the cult-like gatherings, the willingness to trust platforms offering impossible returns. For many in crypto, it represents the full arc of how these collapses happen: real people, genuine excitement, catastrophic endings.
It also became a source of uncomfortable laughter. Matos himself was a victim, not an organizer. He lost money. The enthusiastic speech that made him famous was given while he believed in something that turned out to be fraud.
After Bitconnect
Matos subsequently became a fixture at crypto events, partly leaning into his meme status. He appeared at subsequent conferences, gave interviews acknowledging his loss, and discussed the experience of having become an internet symbol. He did not appear to profit significantly from Bitconnect itself.
In a later interview, he reflected on the experience with a mixture of humor and acknowledgment of the loss — noting that the internet had made him famous but that he would have preferred it happen differently.
Cultural Legacy
The Bitconnect speech is one of crypto’s canonical memes alongside images of John McAfee’s predictions, the “This Is Fine” dog adapted for market crashes, and the Bitcoin pizza transaction. It resurfaces during every crypto cycle — often as a warning about what bull market enthusiasm can do to otherwise reasonable people, and as a reminder that behind every Ponzi scheme are real people who believed in it.
Related Terms
- Bitconnect — The Ponzi scheme at the center of the speech
- Ponzi Scheme — Fraudulent investment structures
- FTX — Later, larger instance of similar investor trust being exploited
- Lark Davis — Another figure associated with crypto influencer culture
- Bull Market — The market conditions that enable this kind of mania