Imagine a dimly lit red lacquered room in a luxury hotel. A group of men in hoodies, some in business suits, others wearing sunglasses, sit at a table with women whose platters of sushi are used instead of energy drinks and laptops. Standing ominously around.
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crypto.news brings you #hashtaghearsay, a weekly gossip column with scoops and stories shaping the world of cryptocurrencies. If you have any tips, please email Dorian Batycka. [email protected]
No, this isn't a Weinstein-era casting call in 1990s Hollywood, but another episode of #hearsay, my weekly gossip column exploring the steamy underbelly of cryptocurrencies.
This week's episode takes you behind the scenes of the Copper Sushi Model's turmoil after its digital asset manager was arrested. financial times A scantily clad model was used as a sushi platter at the company's Digital Asset Summit afterparty.
The inside story? Of course, it happened at the Mandrake Hotel. The Mandrake Hotel is one of London's most seedy hotels, owned by its namesake, Lebanese party boy turned hotel entrepreneur Rami Hustok. Welcome to the world of underground cryptocurrency “bro” culture. There, a cringecore hotel serves as a backdrop for bizarre dealings and misogynistic rampages.
Copper Technologies, the digital asset company hosting the party, is also not an active social justice company. The company is said to have ties to Russian arms dealers and sanctioned bankers. In 2023 and 2024, Jonathan Zimenkov and Mikhail Kryukin were found to have made transactions with the company worth more than $4.8 million and £15 million (approximately $18.9 million), respectively, and both men were in the UK and the US. They are subject to sanctions from the authorities. .
But let's be honest: Cryptocurrency is a total sausage fest, a testosterone-fueled echo chamber where women are as rare as Bitcoin in a bear market. To make matters worse, they are also often targets of outright abuse.
In 2018, Laura Shin, a well-known crypto journalist and host of the podcast “Unchained,” wrote about her experiences with online harassment and threats from individuals within the crypto community. Over the years, she has documented specific instances of misogynistic comments and derogatory messages directed at her on social media platforms such as X and her Reddit. On March 24th, crypto influencer Jeremy Kayen (Pauly0x) called Singh a “prostitute” in X-Space after he canceled (later postponed) a scheduled interview with a Porkcoin pal. called. Cahen himself is no stranger to controversy, having been found guilty along with Ryder Ripps of illicitly enriching and defaming Yuga Labs, known as one of the oiliest crypto bros in the game.
Tron (TRX), a token launched in 2018, faced a wave of criticism after its launch featuring a prominent partnership with a blockchain-based porn platform. Since the birth of cryptocurrencies, women seem to have been treated as supporting characters, objects to be seen rather than listened to.
Walking through conferences from Singapore to Miami, it's no wonder that most of them are men. Companies in the industry must do more or face criticism for the lack of gender diversity in management teams and boards of directors, whose names and statistics are readily available in public reports. be. It's all public. This is what decentralized governance can and should do: greater equality and more balance in markets and participants.
This does not mean that women are completely excluded from cryptocurrencies. In fact, just last weekend I attended her DeSci in London. There, an all-female panel included representatives from AthenaDAO, AsteriskDAO, and HairDAO. In London, women are participating in an event focused on Web3. This is probably because men in London just want to eat the sushi served to them by women at the Mandrake Hotel. One of my best friends in the industry, Alexandra Artamonovskaya, is a veteran of the cryptocurrency industry with an interest in digital art who studied at Sotheby's Museum.
My boss at Crypto.news, Catherine Mychka, reminds me at least once a week that my EU shift is occupied by a male writer. Ladies and gentlemen, the proof is right before our eyes. There are women in the industry, but they remain a minority thanks to the toxic male culture that tends to permeate our industry like stinky farts.
Furthermore, it is difficult to succeed in cryptocurrencies unless you are given a lot of structural conditions at birth. Regular internet access, not to mention food, shelter, and school for math and coding. But while keynotes at major industry events feel dominated by self-styled industry evangelists full of Christ-like white boys, the problem is that these pro-Ramo industry figures It's permeating the industry like a foul-smelling stench. Understood. I want to look like a baller, but my crypto friends, calm down.
When I first became interested in cryptocurrencies, I felt like I was participating in a new utopian vision and hope for a world powered by decentralization. Instead, that promise appears to have been abandoned, replaced by a Kafkaesque caricature of an industry cannibalizing with greed and toxicity. Effective altruists who seem to be pursuing only the twisted logic of Silicon Valley 2.0 personified by white men feel a little boring to me. Diversity breeds innovation. Having more voices, more perspectives, more ideas creates just those forms exponentially.
Just as I finished eating the sushi on my usual plate, I noticed a warning. Given the fact that I myself am male and white, it would be embarrassing and alienating for me to criticize crypto “bro” culture. I thought to myself as I soaked the sushi rolls in a bath of soy sauce and wasabi. Am I part of the problem? Or could the future of cryptocurrencies, a world where greed and misogyny seem to go hand in hand, be replaced by a world where we're talking about SushiSwaps instead of sushi rolls?
