JK Rowling gets thousands of followers out of 9 Bitcoin tweets

Three thousand crypto enthusiasts have followed JK Rowling on Twitter, after she tweeted about Bitcoin multiple times between May 15 and May 20.

The new crypto followers have a combined total of 10 million followers between them, around two-thirds the size of Rowling’s own 14.6 million-strong following, according to research by Social Forensics. Among her notable new followers are Gemini CEO Tyler Winklevoss, Kraken CEO Jesse Powell, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, Tron CEO Justin Sun and Binance.US CEO Catherine Coley.

It all kicked off when she tweeted a reply to Coindesk reporter Leigh Cuen on May 15, stating, “I don’t understand bitcoin. Please explain it to me.” She was then hit with a barrage of explanations ranging from cocktail metaphors to, unsurprisingly, Harry Potter analogies.

“Hours and hours of ‘you don’t have to trust a bank’ and ‘it can’t be manipulated by governments’ and not a single one of you thought to mention that BITCOIN GIVES YOU ETERNAL LIFE,” she tweeted, before eventually giving up and advising her following never to be so flippant about Bitcoin.

Whether she wanted it or not, Rowling now has a strong crypto following. Since tweeting about Bitcoin, Rowling has gained 38,500 new followers, of which eight percent are classified as being from the crypto world.

In that timeframe, Rowling received 76 new followers who are verified on Twitter, of which 25 are classified as crypto users.

“God bless every single one of you now earnestly explaining bitcoin to me as though I’ll grasp it if you break it down properly. Things like this are white noise to me. I cannot and will not ever understand Bitcoin, but I love you for thinking that I can or will,” Rowling tweeted at the time.

But as much as Rowling wants to draw a line under Bitcoin, her new army of crypto followers may not let her.