Andrew Tate’s New Token Reminds Us of Crypto’s ‘Bro’ Problem

The bad news for Andrew Tate? He’s facing human trafficking and rape accusations. The good news? He’s been allowed to leave Romania to await trial. And rest assured, Tate isn’t wasting time repenting. Instead, he’s using the opportunity to promote his ‘electronic money‘—called DADDY—on the world stage. “I am free,” the potential political prisoner announced in a X send Friday. “I’m free to go on a world tour. A DADDY tour,” he proclaimed in an accompanying video, listing places he wants to visit, including “Tokyo, Dubai, [and] “You love me.”

Tate is just one of several celebrities who have leveraged memecoins as a way to promote their brand and make money. Tate began promoting his coin on June 11th and shortly after reached a market cap of over 217 million dollars.

The so-called influencer of masculinity launched the currency to oust the rapper $MOTHER by Iggy Azalea“for the patriarchy.” “We’re bringing back the Gs, make me some fucking sandwich bitches,” he added. And he succeeded: it’s currently trading at five times the value of Azalea, according to CoinGecko data.

Tate’s views do not reflect those of the cryptocurrency world as a whole, and some of those who have purchased his token are likely driven by profit rather than ideology. However, the popularity of Tate’s coin points to the cryptocurrency industry’s persistent problem with misogyny.

While some elements of cryptocurrency have been hostile to women since its inception, the current market recovery has been based in part on appealing to the mainstream. This includes institutional investors who are gaining access to the market through Bitcoin ETF Spotsand members of Congress, who are make progress towards regulation. So, it must be the “cryptographer brother“evolve so that the sector is taken seriously?

The Unshakeable “Crypto Bro”

The term “crypto bro,” an echo of the term “tech bro,” long used to criticize hateful elements in Silicon Valley, gained traction during the cryptocurrency bubble of 2021. The phrase has no precise definition and can describe everything from hackathon-loving, legend-spewing blockchain nerds to far-right libertarians who see crypto as a way to challenge government control. Either way, the term reflects the uncomfortable truth that this was an industry created by men, for men. In fact, a 2021 survey shows only 5% of users globally they were women.

As a female journalist entering the industry in 2024, I’ve encountered the “crypto bro” culture firsthand. And I should add, it has its upsides: As a woman, you go straight to the bathroom at conferences, patiently waiting in line and checking an X. But despite conducting well over 100 interviews this year, I have yet to speak to a female founder. Azalea may be an exception, but her attempt to become the matriarch of cryptocurrency has quickly sparked a counteroffensive from Tate.

There are, of course, an abundance of women who have built successful businesses and careers in the cryptocurrency industry. To name just a few: He Yi, co-founder of Binance, and co-founder of the Tezos blockchain, Katherine Breitman. Caitlin Long, founder and CEO of Custodia Bank for digital assets. The CEO of Yuga Labs, the company behind the infamous Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT, is Nicole Muniz. A Monetary baseAlesia Haas and Emilie Choi claim the roles of CFO and COO, respectively. Mary-Catherine Lader leads Uniswap Labs as COO.

These women have succeeded in the cryptocurrency industry, but they are definitely an exception. The industry is “deeply intertwined with masculinity,” writes Professor Alexis Henshaw: Why? The best answer may be risk tolerance. Men are thought to be more willing to accept riskier investments and cryptocurrencies are thought to be a more volatile asset.

But Professor Dan Cassino, a cryptocurrency and masculinity researcher at Fairleigh Dickinson University, says the issue goes deeper. Cryptocurrency is marketed as a way for individuals to demonstrate stereotypically masculine traits, he says. That includes “mastery of complex systems, challenging existing power structures, all in the service of a heroic narrative that ends, in the telling of the people selling cryptocurrency, with them getting rich,” he says. That is, as long as they display the masculinized traits of loyalty and perseverance.

This phenomenon is exemplified in a video posted by a certain Wall Street Wolverine during the 2021 crash. The crypto influencer looks into the camera and commands: “Gentlemen, we invest with balls here. Here, HODL… Are you crying here? Take your fucking money and put it in a Santander fixed-term savings account.”

Cassino is surprised it took Tate this long to flip a coin. His audience, young men who value traditional masculinity but feel they don’t measure up, is the same audience disproportionately likely to buy cryptocurrency, he says. Tate has calculated that if he can sell his “Hustler University” to his fans, he can sell them in cryptocurrency.

Young men moving to the right

Unlike previous cycles, thanks to ETFs, institutional investors have now entered the market. As a result, the sector no longer relies solely on the portfolios of young men. Despite this, retail investors are still setting the tone for the sector. While surveys suggest that female adoption is on the rise, in 2024 the crypto bro “will certainly still exist,” Cassino says.

Today, only 6% of Cryptocurrency CEOs are women. And users are still disproportionately young men. Most recent adoption statistics—taken from Norway—show that men are still more than three times more likely than women to own cryptocurrency, and 70% of users are under the age of 40. In March, the Financial Times reported that custodian Copper served sushi to two naked models at a private event at a cryptocurrency conference. Meanwhile, as celebrities keep their distance, Elon Musk and Donald Trump have emerged as industry figures. And now, there’s Tate’s global DADDY tour to look forward to.

And in light of the broader changes in the political landscape, the crypto bro’s perseverance makes sense. A recent relationship found that young men have become more conservative since 2014, around the time cryptocurrencies began to gain popularity, and they are the only U.S. population group to do so. “Despair” and “disillusionment” with established politics were popular words used among respondents. Faced with a society where gender roles are in flux, and women are more likely than men to attend collegeSome are banking on Tate and cryptocurrency’s promise of financial freedom to revive notions of traditional masculinity.

Memecoin and the boys

Usurping the role NFTs played in previous cycles, memecoins have dominated the tone of the current market recovery. Memecoins merge finance, internet trends, and gambling, with investors flocking to the highly speculative and ironic asset during viral moments. And young men are the “base” of this craze, Cassino says. While the crypto world once revolved entirely around Bitcoin, many new adopters have instead embraced DOGE, PEPE, and SHIB (and now DADDY). This reflects a continued desire to join a community bound by shared risk and united with a middle finger to the system—any system, even cryptocurrency itself.

There is no data on the gender split of memecoin investors. However, as high-risk, anti-authority investments, the coins share a similar allure Memestock. So, the latter enthusiasts can be considered a substitute for memecoin hobbyists. Nathaniel Popper’s recent book The Trolls of Wall Street tells the story of the Memestock saga in which the “degenerates” on Reddit pulled out the Game Store trade that shook Wall Street. A tale of institutional defiance for some, Popper reveals a different story, one of socially isolated and chronically online young men who fail to thrive through traditional means and so seek an outlet.

The memestock craze shares similar characteristics to Tate’s superfan with young men seeking community to push back against a perceived threat to their masculine identity. But does crypto need to shed its bros to be taken seriously? Cassino believes that if the watering down of bro culture leads to the proliferation of gray suits, crypto could lose its appeal, turning into just another financial instrument. But then, would anyone care? “You could argue that without crypto bros, there’s not much left,” he says.

Crypto’s unique selling point is the community that surrounds it. Community is never a bad thing, especially one that allows men to bond. The challenge Crypto faces is how to maintain its culture while expanding its membership. Bro crypto has likely fallen out of favor due to bad actors like Sam Bankman-Fritto AND Changpeng ZhaoBut now, with both behind bars, the industry has a chance to rebrand degeneration as inclusivity and remind the public that its existence arose in response to the failure of broader social and economic systems.

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