Andrew Tate’s new token is a reminder of crypto’s ‘bro’ problem

The bad news for Andrew Tate? He faces charges of human sex trafficking and rape. The good news? He has been allowed to leave Romania while he awaits trial. And rest assured, Tate is wasting no time in regretting it. On the contrary, he is using the opportunity to promote his Solana-based memecoin — which he calls DADDY — on the world stage. “I am free,” the political prisoner candidate announced in an X post on Friday. “I am free to tour the world. A DADDY tour,” he declared in an accompanying video. “Tokyo, Dubai, [and] “Miami.”

Tate is just one of countless celebrities using memecoins as a way to promote their brands and make money. Tate began promoting her coin on June 11, and it soon reached a market cap of over $217 million.

The would-be masculinity influencer launched the currency to dethrone rapper Iggy Azalea’s $MOTHER, “for the patriarchy.” “We’re bringing back the Gs, women who make me a f*ck sandwich,” he added. And he succeeded: It’s currently trading at a valuation five times larger than Azalea’s, according to CoinGecko data.

Tate’s views do not necessarily reflect those of the crypto world as a whole, and some of those who purchased her tokens were motivated by profit rather than ideology. Still, the popularity of Tate’s coin speaks to the crypto industry’s ongoing problem with misogyny.

While some elements of crypto have been hostile to women since its inception, the current market revival is partly based on appealing to the mainstream, including institutional investors gaining access to the market through spot Bitcoin ETFs and members of Congress pushing for regulation. So, must the “crypto bro” evolve for the industry to be taken seriously?

Unshakable ‘crypto brother’

The term “crypto bro”—an echo of the term “tech bro,” long used to denounce the nastier elements of Silicon Valley—gained momentum during the 2021 crypto bubble. There’s no precise definition for the phrase, and it can describe anything from hackathon-loving blockchain enthusiasts to far-right libertarians who see crypto as a way to challenge government control. In any case, the term reflects the uncomfortable truth that it’s an industry created by men, for men. Indeed, a 2021 survey found that only 5% of users globally are women.

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As a female reporter coming into the industry in 2024, I’ve encountered the “crypto bro” culture firsthand. And, I might add, it has its perks: As a woman, you walk right into the bathroom at conferences, patiently checking your X and cutting to the front of the line. But despite conducting over 100 interviews this year, I’ve yet to speak to a female founder. Azalea is perhaps the exception, but her bid to be the matriarch of crypto prompted a swift counterattack from the Tate.

Of course, there are plenty of women building successful companies and careers in crypto. To name just a few: He Yi, co-founder of Binance, and Katherine Breitman, co-founder of the Tezos blockchain. Caitlin Long, founder and CEO of Custodia Bank for digital assets. Nicole Muniz, CEO of Yuga Labs, the company behind the infamous Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT. Alesia Haas and Emilie Choi hold the roles of CFO and COO, respectively, at Coinbase. Mary-Catherine Lader leads Uniswap Labs as COO.

These women have succeeded in crypto, but they are very much the exception. Professor Alexis Henshaw writes that the industry is “deeply intertwined with masculinity.” Why? The best answer might be risk tolerance. It’s believed that men are more likely to accept riskier investments and that crypto is a more volatile asset.

But Professor Dan Cassino, a crypto and masculinity researcher at Fairleigh Dickinson University, says it goes deeper than that. Crypto is marketed as a way for individuals to display stereotypically masculine traits, he says. “Mastery of complex systems, challenging existing power structures, all in service of a heroic narrative that ends with the kind of riches that people selling crypto tell us,” he says. That is, if they display masculinized traits like loyalty and perseverance.

This phenomenon is exemplified in a video posted by a Wall Street Wolverine during the 2021 crash. The crypto influencer looks into the camera and commands: “Sir, we’re investing boldly here. We’re HODLing here… Are you crying here? Take your damn money and put it in a Santander savings account.”

Cassino is surprised that Tate waited until now to launch a coin. He says his audience of young men who value traditional masculinity but feel they’re falling behind is the same demographic that’s disproportionately likely to buy cryptocurrency. If Tate can sell his fans his “Hustler’s University,” he figures he can sell them cryptocurrency.

Young men are moving to the right

Unlike previous cycles, institutional investors have now entered the market thanks to ETFs. As a result, the sector no longer relies solely on the wallets of young men. Despite this, retail investors still set the tone for the sector. While surveys show increasing female adoption, the crypto bro “definitely still exists” in 2024, Cassino says.

Today, only 6% of crypto CEOs are women. And users are still disproportionately young men. The latest adoption statistics from Norway show that men are three times more likely to own crypto than women, 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 crypto conference. Meanwhile, celebrities have kept their distance, while Elon Musk and Donald Trump have emerged as industry luminaries. And now, there’s the eagerly awaited Tate global DADDY tour.

And in light of broader shifts in the political landscape, the crypto bros’ determination makes sense. A recent report found that young men have become more conservative since 2014—around the time crypto began gaining popularity—and are the only U.S. demographic to do so. “Despair” and “disillusionment” with established politics were popular words among survey participants. Faced with a society where gender roles are increasingly rigid and women are more likely to go to college than men, some are looking to Tate and crypto’s promise of financial freedom to revitalize traditional notions of masculinity.

Memecoins and boys

Having usurped the role played by NFTs in previous cycles, memecoins have dominated the tone of the current market revival. Memecoins combine finance, internet trends, and gambling, with investors flocking to highly speculative, cynical assets during viral moments. And Cassino says the “foundation” of this craze is made up of young men. While the crypto world once revolved entirely around Bitcoin, many new adopters have instead embraced the likes of DOGE, PEPE, and SHIB (and now DADDY). This reflects a desire to join a community bound by shared risk and united by a middle finger to the system, any system—even crypto itself.

There is no data on the gender breakdown of memecoin investors. However, as high-risk, anti-authority investments, the coins have a similar appeal to memestocks. As such, enthusiasts of the latter can be considered a proxy for memecoin enthusiasts. Nathaniel Popper’s latest book, The Trolls of Wall Street , retells the memestock saga, in which “degenerates” on Reddit executed the GameStop trade that rocked Wall Street. A tale of institutional defiance for some, Popper reveals a different story of socially isolated and chronically online young men who have failed to succeed through traditional means and are therefore looking for a way out.

The memestock craze shares similarities with the Tate superfan, where young men seek community to counter the perceived threat to their male identity. But does crypto need to be rid of its bros to be taken seriously? Cassino believes that if the dilution of bro culture leads to the proliferation of grey suits, crypto could lose its appeal and become just another financial instrument. But would anyone be interested in it then? “You could argue that without the 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 for crypto is how to maintain its culture while expanding its membership. The crypto bro has fallen into disrepute due to bad actors like Sam Bankman-Fried and Changpeng Zhao. But now that both are in prison, the industry has a chance to rebrand corruption as inclusivity and remind the public that its existence is a response to the failure of larger social and economic systems.

This story was first published on Fortune.com