Diamond Hands / Paper Hands

Submission 226

Part of a series on Cryptocurrency. [View Related Entries]

About

Diamond Hands is a slang term used in the trading and cryptocurrency community, particularly meme stocks and meme coins, to describe the psychological resilience of an investor who holds onto their position despite market volatility, major price drops or adverse news. The opposite of diamond hands is the slang Paper Hands, which is a term used to describe an investor who sells at the first sign of turbulence and is weak. The two terms were popularized online in 2020, in the /r/WallStreetBets subreddit, especially during the GameStop Short Squeeze, also being prevalent on platforms like X / Twitter and YouTube.

Origin

The term "diamond hands" is purported^[1] to have originated on the /r/WallStreetBets^[2] subreddit, which has been instrumental in popularizing various slang terms and memes that revolve around stock market trading, particularly of highly volatile stocks and cryptocurrencies like meme stocks and meme coins.

The earliest found usage of the term on the subreddit was posted by Redditor freshwater21^[3] on January 29th, 2021, which was added alongside an image of Keith Gill, the man largely responsible for the WallStreetBets GameStop Short Squeeze. The post amassed more than 130,000 upvotes and 2,500 comments in three years.

"Paper hands" slang was likely coined on the same subreddit by the community around the same timeframe, with the earliest known usage of the term being posted on February 2nd, 2021, by Redditor The-Good-Morty,^[4] who commented on a tweet of someone complaining about his financial loss after investing in a meme coin. The post (seen below) received roughly 52,000 upvotes and 3,000 comments in three years.

Spread

The virality of "diamond hands" and "paper hands" as slang terms has grown over the years since the early 2020s, typically used by stock and crypto trading communities when significant events cause fluctuation in the market as a way to show strength (diamond hands) or weakness (paper hands). The diamond Emoji (💎) and open hands Emoji (👐) are often used together as shorthand for the diamond hands term, while the toilet paper Emoji (🧻) is used for paper hands.

For instance, on November 8th, 2023, YouTube^[5] user @ posted a video titled "Diamond Hands Trader Escapes the Meme Stock Cult | Dank Trades" talking about the 2021 GME short squeeze (seen below), which amassed over 77,000 views and 2,600 likes in three years.

On February 4th, 2021, Redditor @flixoto^[6] posted a SpongeBob SquarePants meme, captioning it, "A message for the paper hands," which received more than 3,400 upvotes and 96 comments in three years.