'Buy BTC': Viral Leaked GTA 6 Game Trailer Shills Bitcoin

Will there be cryptocurrency in Grand Theft Auto 6, as widely rumored? So far such claims are unsubstantiated, but crypto and GTA 6 got a highly visible mash-up this week when the trailer was prematurely leaked with a Bitcoin ad emblazoned on top.

The anonymous leaker created a Twitter account named “Gta6trailerleak” and shared the first official trailer for the highly anticipated game Monday, one day before Rockstar Games said that it would come out. The account was quickly banned, but the damage was done—the trailer started to spread, and Rockstar quickly released the official version early.

The leaked trailer, which can still be seen elsewhere on Twitter, offered gamers a first look at the upcoming open-world action game. It also had the words “BUY $BTC” plastered on top of everything, putting the leading cryptocurrency in front of the eyes of potentially millions of excited gamers. The legitimate trailer, of course, didn't have the pro-Bitcoin message.

Rockstar Games may not have been thrilled with the unexpected trailer leak, but some Bitcoin aficionados are relishing the viral moment for the recently rising top cryptocurrency.

“They took down the [account] lmao but the GTA leaker shilled our bags,” tweeted Standard Crypto investor Colin Hong. “God’s work.”

“Legend,” tweeted an account called Wall Street Bitcoin. “A message the world needed to hear.”

Bitcoin influencer and Taproot Wizards project co-founder Udi Wertheimer praised the trailer’s reach—and used it as an opportunity to call out “laser-eye” Bitcoin maximalists.

“Yesterday, we saw the best mainstream Bitcoin marketing campaign in years,” he tweeted about the leaked trailer. “Millions of gamers couldn’t stop talking about it. Two-min video, more effective than 10,000 hours of laser-eye podcasts.”

Grand Theft Auto 6 was officially revealed on Monday, shortly after the trailer leaked, with the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S game not set to release until 2025. The game will arrive 12 years after the launch of Grand Theft Auto 5, which has sold some 190 million copies to date across PC and three generations of game consoles.

Bitcoin has been booming in recent weeks, rising above $44,000 for the first time in 20 months earlier this week. The price has jumped 25% over the last 30 days, at the current price of $43,980, according to data from CoinGecko.

The price of Bitcoin has been climbing due in part to anticipation that a Bitcoin spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) will be approved in the United States for the first time. It does not appear that there was any particular price jump on Monday tied to the GTA 6 trailer leak.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.