Copium and hopium: the two imaginary drugs of every bad trade
Hopium is taken before a result, copium after a loss. Here is how the two jokes differ, how they entered crypto chats, and the odd route each word took to reach the dictionary.
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A small pharmacy with two shelves
Every trader eventually meets both bottles. One is labeled hopium and is taken before the outcome: it makes a price target feel certain. The other is copium, taken after the bad news: it makes a loss feel like someone else's mistake, or like no loss at all. The joke in both words is the same, a mind soothing itself with a substance instead of looking at the chart.
Both are blends. Copium joins cope and opium; hopium joins hope and opium. Collins lists both as slang blends, and CoinGecko's glossary draws the dividing line cleanly: copium is a way of coping with an unfavorable situation, hopium is unfounded hope itself.
The same position, five sentences
Follow one imaginary holder to see which shelf each remark comes from.
| Moment | What the holder says | Which drug |
|---|---|---|
| Just bought | "This one runs next week." | Hopium |
| Down 30% | "Healthy retrace, nothing to see." | Copium |
| Down 80% | "The team is still building." | Copium, often a heavy dose |
| Quiet chart | "Any day now it wakes up." | Hopium |
| Months later | "I only ever wanted a long-term hold." | Copium |
The sample lines are invented for this page. The test is simple: if the sentence defends something that already happened, it is copium; if it promises something that has not, it is hopium.
Copium up close
Merriam-Webster's 2026 entry defines it as denial or minimization of an unfavorable situation, imagined as a narcotic. Wiktionary tags it internet slang that began on 4chan and describes a metaphorical opiate swallowed to cope with loss or disillusionment, leaving the user detached from reality. You cannot out-argue someone on copium; you can only point at the tank.
Tone: nearly always mock, and self when someone owns up to it. It works as a one-word reply, as a verb phrase (huffing, inhaling, "on" copium) and as a strength scale ("max copium"). Invented examples:
- "Down 80% and calling it a shakeout. Copium."
- "I tell everyone I'm a long-term investor now. Yes, it's copium."
- "'Devs are cooking.' The devs sold in March."
CoinMarketCap's slang glossary files copium and hopium together as memes that reached crypto from other corners of the internet. Dexerto, covering the dictionary update, says gamers were using the word long before.
Why people huff it
The verb comes straight from a picture. On July 5, 2019, a user on 4chan's /pol/ board posted Pepe the Frog breathing from an oxygen tank labeled copium. So "huffing copium" means breathing in the story that numbs the loss, while "on copium" and "max copium" say the same thing at different volumes.
Hopium up close
Collins, as quoted by Grammarphobia, defines hopium as a substance said to be taken by people with an unrealistically optimistic outlook. In markets the sense shrinks to price: the belief that a dead coin will come back, or that the pump is one candle away. Like copium it is a mass noun, so you run "on hopium" or huff it, and the tone is mock toward others, self when confessed. A line for illustration: "Holding on pure hopium for this bounce."
A history that starts in 1870
Hopium is the older word by far. Grammarphobia's earliest find is a pun in the British weekly The Tomahawk of May 28, 1870, mocking an anti-opiate movement as "The Band of Hope-ium!". A 1988 book on Jonestown by David Chidester used it for the myths believed by people addicted to them. On July 30, 2008, a John Kass column in the Chicago Tribune applied it ironically to enthusiasm for Barack Obama's supporters, and Grammarphobia suspects the Hope poster helped it spread.
Copium has a shorter and messier biography. Know Your Meme and Grammarphobia give these markers:
- June 17, 2003: the Oakland rapper Keak da Sneak releases an album titled Copium, which Ben Zimmer found stood for "Counting Other People's Money", a different thing altogether.
- March 30, 2018: an anonymous 4chan /int/ post uses the word, an early online sighting.
- July 5, 2019: the Pepe oxygen-tank image appears and becomes the template.
- Summer 2020: it moves to 9GAG on June 26 and Reddit on August 6; on October 3, Urban Dictionary defines it as a metaphorical opiate for facing loss.
- November and December 2020: Vice and The Guardian use it after the US presidential election, according to Wiktionary's citations.
- September 2026: Merriam-Webster adds it.
Merriam-Webster, as Grammarphobia quotes it, believes several people probably invented the word independently during the 2000s. Grammarphobia adds that the Pepe meme first mocked political losers who would not accept defeat, and only later widened to any comforting denial.
Why markets breed both
A price chart is a scoreboard that never closes. Between a purchase and an exit there are long stretches where nothing is settled, and that is where stories grow. Before the move, hopium fills the silence with a target. After a drop, copium fills it with a reason the drop does not count. Neither word says the speaker is wrong: a coin can bounce, a team can still be building. They say the speaker is no longer checking, and that the sentence is doing emotional work, not analytical work.
Related terms
- Cope: the root, often thrown alone as a reply.
- Bagholder: the usual suspect.
- Rekt: the event that triggers the cope.
- NGMI: the blunter verdict once the supply runs dry.
- Crypto Twitter slang: the neighbouring vocabulary.
Sources
- Know Your Meme, Copium, 2020
- Grammarphobia, Are 'hopium' and 'copium' nope-iums?, 2026
- Wiktionary, copium, 2026
- Dexerto, "Looksmaxxing," "copium" and "Rickroll" among 1,400 new words in Merriam-Webster dictionary, 2026
- CoinMarketCap Alexandria, Crypto slang you need to learn, 2022
- CoinGecko, What is hopium in crypto?, 2024
Questions
Is copium a real dictionary word now?
Yes. Collins lists it, and Merriam-Webster added it in a September 2026 update of roughly 1,400 new words and senses, having handled it earlier on a slang page.
Which drug is a holder on when they say the dip is healthy?
Copium, if the price has already fallen and they are explaining it away. If they are predicting a bounce with no evidence, that is hopium. The difference is whether the sentence faces the past or the future.
Where does the "huffing" come from?
From a picture. On July 5, 2019, a 4chan /pol/ user posted Pepe the Frog breathing from an oxygen tank labeled copium, and huffing is what the frog does.
What did CoinGecko say about hopium?
Its glossary describes hopium as unfounded hope, with the example of an investor who believes a dead coin still has potential and will moon.
Does copium only exist in crypto?
No. Dexerto notes it was long popular in gaming circles, and Wiktionary shows news outlets using it about politics by 2020. Crypto is one stage among several.
Is the 2003 album called Copium the origin?
Not in the sense used today. Grammarphobia reports that the linguist Ben Zimmer found the title stood for "Counting Other People's Money", so it is a coincidence of spelling.