Latest / The Smart Cookies podcast / Cryptocurrency And Masculinity: Why Some Men Risk Everything On Bitcoin | Dr. Dan Cassino

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Cryptocurrency And Masculinity: Why Some Men Risk Everything On Bitcoin | Dr. Dan Cassino · The Smart Cookies podcast

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  Dan Cassino is professor of government and politics
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  at the Fairleigh Dickinson University in the
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  US. He has published many books and research
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  articles on political communication, political
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  cognition, and the socio -political consequences
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  of men's gender identities. The latter also the
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  topic of his latest book, Bitcoin Bros, Masculinity,
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  Cryptocurrency, and the Future of Men. Oh man,
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  I can already tell this episode is going to be
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  delicious. Professor Cassino, welcome to the
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  program. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
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  For all the perhaps lucky people out there who
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  might be totally oblivious to this subculture,
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  who are the Bitcoin bros? All right. So let's
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  talk about Bitcoin in general. I mean, we talk
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  about cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency is an idea
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  that goes back really to about the 1980s. And
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  the idea was, and this largely comes out of a
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  very weird group of people who are cryogenics
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  enthusiasts. So think about cryogenics, people
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  who think they're going to freeze themselves
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  and be woken up 5 ,000 years in the future or
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  something like. fry on Futurama. And these guys
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  in the 80s are trying to figure out, well, I
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  need to keep my money for when they wake me up
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  1 ,000 years or 5 ,000 years in the future or
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  whatever. And so I need money that's somehow
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  not going to have inflation and also at the same
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  time is not going to be tied to a government.
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  And so we get these weird ideas. We can create
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  these new forms of currencies, new forms of alternate
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  money, not tied to government, not subject to
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  inflation. And it spreads from there. The idea
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  is taken up very heavily in the 1990s by... by
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  hackers and by people who are really interested
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  in anarchism and trying to get away from governments
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  and for people who want to buy drugs and do criminal
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  stuff with money because we need a way to have
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  this money that is not going to be traceable
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  back to anybody. The Silk Road. The Silk Road
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  is part of it, but it actually goes way before
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  that. You can find in the mid -1990s. cryptocurrencies
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  that are used for buying drugs and sex, for basically
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  moving money illegally in ways people don't want
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  to be moved. And the US government in the 90s
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  cracks down this hard and is able to put an end
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  to it. But by the mid -2000s, by the time we
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  get about 2009 after the financial crisis, there's
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  a new interest in this because the thought is
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  that, yeah, people are just not managing. Governments
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  aren't managing money well. And because they're
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  not managing money well, we need alternate ways
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  of doing this. And so we have these weird currencies.
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  We call them currencies. They don't really work
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  like currencies, right? Currencies hold their
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  value. You use them to exchange for goods and
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  services. No one really does that with these.
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  These are investment tools and they are phenomenally
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  complicated. And as I argued, this is actually
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  one of the big attractions of cryptocurrencies
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  is that it's really difficult to buy, sell, or
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  use them. It's hard. And if you want to do it
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  properly, yeah, you can find an app that'll do
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  it. it's not going to work out. So you need to
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  have all these other weird setups in order to
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  make it work. So the fact that it's number one,
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  very risky because the inherent value of a cryptocurrency
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  is zero. I mean, it is the cryptocurrency people
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  who are big supporters will point out that modern
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  currencies, you know, since we got off the gold
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  standard in the US, you know, around World War
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  I and really never got back onto it. But since
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  we got off the gold standard. currencies don't
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  really matter at all. Why is a dollar worth something?
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  It's worth something because the US government
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  says it's worth something. And of course, the
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  US government is not the most trustworthy thing
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  in the world. So they say, well, we can't trust
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  them. So all currencies are really based on nothing.
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  But cryptocurrency is based on nothing more than
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  other things because there's no inherent value.
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  And if it ever crashes, as it has in the last
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  couple of weeks, it's lost about half of its
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  value. There's no backup for it. The only value
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  you have from it, the only reason it goes up
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  in price is because you think somebody else is
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  going to pay you more for it, what we call the
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  greater fool theory. Yeah, I'm a fool for buying
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  this asset at this price, but there's going to
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  be somebody out there who's a greater fool than
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  I am and will pay me even more than that. And
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  therefore, it's a good investment to buy it because
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  somebody is even dumber than I am and they will
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  pay a greater premium for it. So the fact that
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  it's complicated and that it's risky and that
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  it represents this entire alternate worldview
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  of the way the world economy works. That makes
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  it attractive to men who are trying to find their
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  way into masculinity, who are trying to prove
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  how masculine they are. Okay. So that was a nice
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  little origin. of cryptocurrencies, but we have
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  to merge it with masculinity. You've just begun
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  to do that, but I want to back up just a little
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  bit. As you've been researching masculinity and
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  what that actually means to people, to guys for
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  a while now, let's establish a bit of a timeline
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  with the Bitcoin bros at its end. How did we
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  get here? Because when I was growing up, we had
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  a big surge of teenage comedies in which the
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  jocks were notoriously stupid and evil, and the
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  nerds became lovable and charming heroes we were
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  rooting for. However, despite all the... american
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  pie sequels i don't think they offered us an
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  aspirational model of masculinity full disclosure
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  when i was 15 i just wanted to be eminem so badly
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  in fact that i even bleached my hair at one point
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  and i should probably stop here you should not
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  tell people that that that's not good for people
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  okay so The way we got, so here's the, normally
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  we talk about masculinity. Most researchers work
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  in masculinity. We're going to call it hegemonic
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  masculinity. And this idea goes back to the 1990s.
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  And the idea is that there is a version of masculinity
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  that is preferred by society. And which version
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  is it? differs by society, but it's whichever
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  version of masculinity is going to best explain
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  why men should own everything and be in charge
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  of everything. Because men are, and we have to
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  justify it somehow. And so we have to come up
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  with stories about why men are, oh, well, men
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  are more rational than women are. Oh, men are
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  stronger than women are. Men are willing to make
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  hard choices. Men are more in touch with God.
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  Like, we just make up stories to explain why
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  men should be in charge of everything. And the
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  problem is that those stories have become increasingly
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  difficult to hold on to. These are myths and
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  it's hard to do. So in the U .S., what you're
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  supposed to do if you are a man, if you're a
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  real man, you're supposed to be working and your
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  wife should not be working. Or if she does, she
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  should have some little job that doesn't really
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  count. Also, you should have a bunch of kids.
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  You should be working out all the time. So you're
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  big and strong. You should have a house in the
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  suburbs and a safe place in a good school district.
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  I don't know. I live in the US in 2026, and that's
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  just not happening. That doesn't happen for anybody.
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  That seems like a dream from the 50s or something.
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  It's exactly the dream from the 50s. And this
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  is actually part, you know, politically, this
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  becomes the idea that, oh, we have to reclaim
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  that. We have to push minorities and women and
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  gay people down. So we, and they're the ones
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  stopping from having it. But this is an ideal.
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  And the ideal of hegemonic masculinity is never
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  supposed to be attainable, but it's supposed
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  to be something you're supposed to strive towards.
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  What's happened in the last 15, 20 years is that
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  it's become so distant. It's not even conceivable.
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  And so men have almost given up on trying to
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  get there. And they're trying to come up with
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  alternate models of masculinity that will, in
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  their view, better explain why men should be
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  in charge of everything. And are threatening
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  this currently hegemonic form of masculinity,
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  which is embodied by guys with really giant watches
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  who are flying first class international travel
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  and doing business deals. I remember being in
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  a Swiss airport and watching men unironically
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  reading Fine Watches magazine. I'm like, okay,
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  that's the guy, right? That's what we're talking
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  about. And these are people who are trying to
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  challenge that. Who are saying, no, well, that's
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  unattainable. And moreover, that's not the best
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  reason why men should be in charge. We're going
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  to have this alternate set of ideas for why men
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  should be in charge. I talk of this as what we
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  call technical masculinities. The idea that I
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  know more than you do. And I know more about
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  masculine coded topics. And among those masculine
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  coded topics, I mean, is finance. I know more
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  about finance. I know more about computers. I
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  know more about technology. I think one of the
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  first big examples of this that people might
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  be familiar with is Gamergate, right? idea of
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  people getting very upset video gamers getting
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  very upset at women who are writing video game
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  reviews um and doxing them doing all sorts of
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  nasty things and this lasted online for years
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  but that was them saying we guys who can play
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  video games we know more than you do we are smarter
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  than you are we have more perseverance right
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  and because that we do these incredibly hard
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  things we can do everything we want we are actually
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  having a better reason why men should be in charge
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  The fact that I can do a speed run in Super Mario
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  Brothers 2 is what means that men should be in
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  charge because those traits that really matter.
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  And you link it back to, you say, in the 80s,
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  we had the jocks versus nerds thing, right? And
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  the jocks were the bad guys. I mean, I'm probably
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  a little older than you are. So I remember all
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  the 80s comedies where guys who had like three
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  different pop collars and they're the bad guys.
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  But it's the same idea. The nerds become the
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  heroes. And we can see this. I don't know. Look
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  at the Marvel movies, right? Like Thor. He should
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  be everyone's, he's the big, strong, blonde guy,
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  but he's a dummy, right? He's not the real hero
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  where Iron Man, you know, who's the smart guy
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  who can do it. Like he's the smart, smart guy.
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  That's the guy who we're supposed to be idolizing.
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  That's the guy who's the real hero of the whole
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  thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's stay in the comfortable
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  realm of pop culture for a moment because that's
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  where I really feel at home. But I do think a
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  sort of big tonal shift came with David Fincher's
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  film, The Social Network, which suddenly made
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  it crystal clear that not only have these sort
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  of like geeky dudes become protagonists, they
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  have begun to transform the world often in quite
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  sinister ways. Now, that does seem like it might
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  have sounded appealing to some lads out there
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  because it denotes power, doesn't it? Even if
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  from an unlikely source. Well, and think about
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  – going back to that movie, think about the whole
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  point. Facebook is created as misogyny, as a
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  way of let's rate how attractive women at Harvard
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  are because these are women who have gotten to
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  Harvard. We should figure out how hot they are.
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  And the idea is because he's going to make a
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  billion dollars or $10 billion, he will get dominance
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  over all these other idiots, like the Winklevoss
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  twins, right? Those are the big strapping guys
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  that should be the heroes. but they're not because
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  they're outsmarted. They're outplayed. They don't
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  understand technology. They don't understand
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  computers and the internet and the way the world
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  works as well as the nerdy guy does. And so the
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  nerds are going to inherit the earth and they're
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  going to, this is going to require fundamentally
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  reshaping the way the economic and social system
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  works. And this is where it feeds into Bitcoin
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  because the only way Bitcoin makes sense is if
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  everybody on earth starts using Bitcoin instead
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  of using dollars and euros and yen and all that.
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  Which means every financial institution on earth
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  has to collapse, but then these guys will have
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  all the money. And that's what they're looking
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  forward to. Oh, Bitcoin's going to go vertical,
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  right? It's going to go asymptotic. It's going
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  to be worth a billion dollars each. And they're
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  going to run out of Maseratis because we're all
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  going to be buying all the Maseratis up. Yeah,
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  it reminds me of Michael Douglas, who was intended
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  as a clear -cut villain in Oliver Stone's Wall
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  Street. And yet there was apparently a surge
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  in the number of guys trying to become sleazy
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  stockbrokers after the movie dropped. Yeah, greed
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  is good went from a warning from Oliver Stone
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  to think he's on to something. He did look a
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  little bit cool, I have to be honest. He had
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  those weird collars that are like a white collar
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  on a blue shirt. I don't even understand how
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  that works. He was modeled apparently by Pat
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  Riley, the legendary basketball coach. I don't
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  know. So it's a weird mishmash of different things.
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  Oliver Stone doing a weird mishmash? That doesn't
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  seem right. Okay. By the way, is it then all
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  about just wielding power since we talked about
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  like Mark Zuckerberg? It has to be about wielding
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  power because again, any performance of masculinity,
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  right? So dominant, hegemonic masculinity is
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  at the top, right? And we can understand that
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  men are performing masculinity and women do femininity
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  as well. I don't generally talk about it very
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  much because I'm a middle -aged white guy and
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  middle -aged white guys should not be telling
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  women, let me tell you what's wrong with women.
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  Like, that's just not cool. I don't want to do
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  it. But also masculinity is valued by society.
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  Femininity is not. And so masculinity, there
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  are fights over who gets to be masculine, what
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  the definition of masculinity is. The fights
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  over femininity are lower stakes because they
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  don't matter as much in society because we don't
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  value femininity. So within masculinity, we've
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  got these fights, first off, with people trying
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  to get to the higher levels of masculinity, trying
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  to prove that they are fulfilling what these
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  masculinities are telling them to do. But at
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  the same time, different versions of masculinity
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  are also fighting. So we've got the dominant
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  hegemonic form masculine at the top. Then you've
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  got at the bottom we call marginalized masculinities.
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  Masculinity is performed by people who can never
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  be part of hegemonic masculinity. So Chad? Well,
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  hegemonic masculinity is raced. I mean, it is
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  largely white people. It is largely white men.
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  It is classed. You have to be rich to do it.
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  It is heterosexual, right? We're talking about
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  getting married to a woman and having kids. Like
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  that is something that gay people have a tough
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  time doing, right? So if you are a gay man, if
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  you are a black man, if you're a poor man, if
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  you're a disabled man, if you're an ugly man,
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  if you're a short man, you are knocked out of
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  being in the hegemonic state. So you're going
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  to do your own for masculinities down here at
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  the bottom, and no one's going to really pay
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  attention to it because you're not threatening
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  anything. And occasionally, if you find a very
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  cool way of performing masculinity, the hegemonic
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  guys might go, oh, that looks cool. I'm going
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  to steal that. That looks fun. I like that. You
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  know, like, oh, video games was a part of marginalized
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  masculinity. And he said, you know, Call of Duty
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  and Madden are pretty cool. That's us now. We're
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  going to do that. That's us. Okay. So the other
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  form of masculinity that doesn't get talked about
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  as much is a form of masculinity that are marginalized
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  but have aspirations, right? Are trying to get
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  and trying to replace that form of masculinity
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  at the top. And that's where these tech guys
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  come in, right? And in order to do that, in order
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  to, these Bitcoin bros, in order to... get to
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  the top, they have to prove that their foreign
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  masculinity is a better excuse for why men should
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  be in charge of everything, right? And so it's
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  not that we're strong. It's not that they're
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  strong. It's not that they are better at rugby.
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  It's not that they have bigger watches and the
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  watches are getting just really absurdly large
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  at this point. It's like flavor, flavor on your
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  wrist. It's ridiculous. But it's because, oh,
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  we know more. We understand the internet better.
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  We understand technology better. We're smarter.
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  And because of that, we're going to get richer.
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  And that's why we should be in charge. And there's
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  misogyny built into it, right? The only reason
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  to say, oh, it's good that men are rational is
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  if you then say, well, women are irrational,
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  right? They're too emotional. You can't have
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  it, right? There's misogyny built into it. But
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  they are making the case that they should be
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  in charge because they can better explain, better
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  justify why men should be in charge in general.
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  Although I have to go back to Mark Zuckerberg,
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  much as it pains me to do so, but he's in the
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  headlines a lot recently for trying his best
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  to distance himself from his... formerly dorky
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  image doing like bjj wearing a chain changing
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  his fashion apparently he even showed up to the
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  prada show last week so he was looking like old
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  school mark zuckerberg like he wasn't but but
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  he is wearing a chain and he's like making an
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  effort with his hair so going to some length
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  to run away as far as possible from the perception
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  of of technical masculinity it seems and we're
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  actually seeing this um look jeff bezos is doing
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  the same thing right saying But I wouldn't say
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  he's running away from it. He is trying to incorporate
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  symbols of currently hegemonic forms of masculinity
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  into a performance of technical masculinity.
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  He's trying to say, I'm going to do all of it,
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  right? And I think that partly what we see among
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  these tech billionaires now is they are trying
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  to show mastery over their own bodies as well
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  as to show mastery over everything else. And
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  that's a lot easier when you can take Ozempic
• 15:30
  if you want to lose weight. Okay, let's go back
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  to crypto for a moment. If you could break down
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  a bit more, why would this industry of magic
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  numbers with no real or useful application, like
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  you said, be such an attractive proposition for
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  such a large contingent of men? Because there
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  are a lot of hobbies, a lot of activities, a
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  lot of subcultures and men's groups out there
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  that you could be joining. Why is it crypto,
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  though? People don't really believe in crypto,
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  do they? They do really believe in crypto and
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  they will tell you all about it. I've been in
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  those conversations. OK, so why crypto? But everybody
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  knows it has no, like you said, no real value.
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  You and I might know that, but it's not that
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  everybody knows that. They absolutely believe
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  that it is real and it is and they have drunk
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  the Kool -Aid. There is no question about that
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  in my mind. But OK, so why crypto? First off,
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  because it is a performance of male coded areas
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  of knowledge. And we have lots of examples of
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  this. craft beer or something i talk about in
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  the book because oh no craft beer please no oh
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  you've met craft beer guys right but it's the
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  same thing it's a performance masculine oh i
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  know about craft beer oh this craft beer tastes
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  like pine salt it's amazing they're drinking
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  these terrible beers Because, and they've got
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  more feminine, oh, this one's fruitier. This
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  is for girls, right? I have to drink the beer
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  that tastes awful and no one would ever want,
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  right? So, because beer is a masculine of expertise.
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  I've been to bars where there's a baseball game
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  on and someone's going to explain baseball to
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  me because sports is a masculine of expertise.
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  They're performing masculine by performing knowledge
• 16:56
  about that area. Finance is a masculine of expertise.
• 17:00
  We know this because when we ask men questions
• 17:02
  about finance, men know more about finance than
• 17:05
  women. Not because they actually know more than
• 17:07
  women, but because they refuse to say, I don't
• 17:09
  know. And so they just guess. It's to do better
• 17:11
  on the questions overall because they just guess.
• 17:12
  Women go, I don't know. I don't care. But men
• 17:15
  say, refuse to say that they don't know something.
• 17:18
  Finance is an area of expertise. Because it's
• 17:20
  a masculinized area of expertise, men get to
• 17:22
  perform how much they know about it. How do you
• 17:26
  do it? Well, you have to get the most complicated.
• 17:28
  You can't just buy a stock and hold on to it
• 17:30
  forever, which is what every single financial
• 17:32
  advisor says to do, right? Buy a blue chip stock
• 17:34
  or buy, better yet, an index fund. Just buy all
• 17:37
  the stocks at once and just put in your portfolio
• 17:39
  and never look at it. That's the way to actually
• 17:41
  make money in the stock market, which, by the
• 17:43
  way, is mostly what women do. Men, however, go,
• 17:46
  well, I know about it. I think I know how to
• 17:48
  pick the stocks better than the market does.
• 17:49
  And they go ahead and they pick stocks and they
• 17:51
  generally lose money on it. That's why their
• 17:52
  portfolios do worse than women do. So they want
• 17:55
  to show what they know about finance. They want
• 17:57
  to show, they want to have a stock as well that's
• 18:00
  very risky. Now, why do you want a risky stock?
• 18:02
  Again, if you have a stock that's not risky,
• 18:03
  Johnson & Johnson is a good example of this.
• 18:05
  They're in the US, they're a company that makes
• 18:07
  medicine, but like over -the -counter medicine.
• 18:09
  Like, you know, they make wipes, they make Band
• 18:12
  -Aids. The stock always goes up a little bit,
• 18:15
  goes up like 2 % every year. It's a very, very
• 18:17
  safe stock. It doesn't give you any opportunity
• 18:19
  to show how masculine you are. Because what you
• 18:22
  want to do is you want to have a risky stock.
• 18:24
  So when it goes up, look how smart I am. That
• 18:26
  just went up. When it goes down, you go, you
• 18:28
  know what? Gotta trust the system. Gotta trust
• 18:30
  the system. I know it's gonna come back up. So
• 18:32
  when it goes down, I'm gonna double down. I'm
• 18:33
  gonna buy more. I'm gonna buy more. The riskier
• 18:35
  it is, the more opportunity it gives you to actually
• 18:38
  show off. these masculinized traits of perseverance
• 18:41
  and knowledge and sticking. So you've got these
• 18:44
  masculinized traits. So you want something risky.
• 18:46
  You want something complicated. There is nothing
• 18:48
  riskier and more complicated than Bitcoin is.
• 18:51
  Moreover, it has all these online forums. And
• 18:53
  it's not a coincidence that this exploded around
• 18:57
  2020 when everyone was at home online all the
• 19:00
  time and going slowly insane. And because of
• 19:02
  that, all these guys, you find these Bitcoin
• 19:04
  boards. largely on Reddit. And then, of course,
• 19:08
  moves over to Telegraph and all these other things
• 19:10
  where people are going to do real shady nonsense.
• 19:12
  And you've got a support system. And these support
• 19:16
  systems are really important to this whole enterprise
• 19:17
  that men are talking to each other and having
• 19:20
  a sense of brotherhood and camaraderie and learning
• 19:22
  from each other. And it gives them a place to
• 19:25
  display this knowledge. Yeah, I wanted to kind
• 19:29
  of counter that by referencing the HODL community
• 19:33
  of just like having some cryptocurrency and parking
• 19:36
  it and not selling it. But then I remembered
• 19:38
  that even these guys are egging each other on
• 19:41
  a bunch. Egg each other on. HODLing the best.
• 19:43
  Right. Who has diamond hands and who has paper
• 19:46
  hands or whatever. So, yeah, my counter argument
• 19:50
  completely failed before it got off the ground.
• 19:52
  And if you go into those forums, first off, they
• 19:55
  are saying. When it goes down, that's when you
• 19:58
  double down. You just buy more, you buy more,
• 20:00
  you buy more. And eventually it'll go vertical.
• 20:02
  It's going to, you know, HODL, which is definitely,
• 20:06
  I'm almost, no one is sure where that came from,
• 20:08
  the HODL. The two major theories are, number
• 20:11
  one, it's just hold, but they misspelled it because
• 20:13
  they're Leetaxors and they misspell things. And
• 20:16
  then, but it's also used as an acronym for, you
• 20:19
  know, hold on for dear life. And I think that's
• 20:22
  just a backronym from somebody misspelling at
• 20:25
  some point. Because you might have noticed in
• 20:27
  this community, stupid stuff happens a lot. This
• 20:30
  is where NFTs come from. NFTs are very closely
• 20:33
  related. We all remember when people were buying
• 20:35
  pictures of monkeys. Yeah, the Bored Ape Yacht
• 20:39
  Club for tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars
• 20:42
  that are now worth literally nothing, which is
• 20:45
  about what they should be worth. But there's
• 20:46
  not fundamentally different than Bitcoin is.
• 20:48
  It just isn't. This is the same technology. Everything
• 20:51
  people say about Bitcoin was also true of the
• 20:53
  Bordet Yop Club. The difference was one was more
• 20:57
  obviously stupid. And so it broke down faster
• 21:00
  than Bitcoin, which you can hide behind these
• 21:03
  highfalutin technological arguments about why.
• 21:05
  No, no, no. This is totally different. Let me
• 21:07
  explain to you. And my God, these guys want nothing
• 21:09
  more than to be able to explain to you why Bitcoin
• 21:12
  actually is the future, because that explanation
• 21:14
  is a self -performance of masculinity. You'd
• 21:18
  be hard -pressed to find a subculture that seems
• 21:20
  less sexy, though, wouldn't you? And even the
• 21:23
  Bitcoin bros must know that. If I ask any of
• 21:26
  my male or female friends who is an absolute
• 21:29
  epitome of masculinity, I don't think a single
• 21:32
  one would say, oh, the founder of Ethereum, Vitalik
• 21:35
  Buterin or something, who is like a demigod in
• 21:38
  this space. Yeah. So, first off... They're not
• 21:42
  trying to impress girls with this. These are
• 21:44
  guys who are not trying to impress girls in any
• 21:46
  way. Well, they're succeeding. Yeah. Well, but
• 21:48
  remember, almost every performance masculinity
• 21:50
  is not directed at women. Performance masculinity
• 21:52
  is always directed at other men. It's for other
• 21:53
  men. Yeah. When guys go to the gym, they're not
• 21:56
  getting big muscles because girls love big muscles.
• 21:58
  They don't. They really don't. But it's a way
• 22:01
  of showing off to other men. It's always a way
• 22:03
  of showing off to other men. It's not about women.
• 22:04
  To be completely fair, I go to the gym sometimes
• 22:07
  and then I just... If I have any progress, I
• 22:11
  send the pictures of myself with no shirts to
• 22:15
  my other male friends. But that's the audience
• 22:18
  for it. Like, you know, my wife doesn't care.
• 22:20
  And then I'm like, look, I'm doing much better
• 22:21
  than you. You guys are ugly and I'm doing awesome.
• 22:23
  Look at my muscles, which are really not impressive
• 22:26
  at all. But this is what everyone's doing. This
• 22:28
  is what all these guys are doing. They are jockeying
• 22:30
  for position with these other groups. And we
• 22:32
  should say, these online groups of men dealing
• 22:35
  with NFTs, dealing with crypto, dealing with
• 22:37
  meme stocks can actually be very supportive.
• 22:40
  They're actually really nice to each other until
• 22:42
  someone says something they think is stupid and
• 22:44
  then just pile on like you wouldn't believe.
• 22:46
  But we've all been in high school. We know how
• 22:48
  guys are. Okay. Here comes the bombshell. As
• 22:53
  unlikely as it may seem from my unbelievably
• 22:55
  rugged appearance, I actually used to work in
• 22:58
  crypto. It wasn't because I wanted to, and it
• 23:01
  certainly wasn't out of conviction. I was a perfectly
• 23:03
  happy tour guide in Berlin, in Germany, when
• 23:06
  the pandemic hit and I found myself not just
• 23:08
  without a job, but without an entire industry
• 23:09
  to work in. So I was getting desperate fast and
• 23:12
  crypto happened to be one of the few sectors
• 23:14
  that was hiring en masse at the time. Now, I
• 23:17
  can't go into specifics. Berlin is a big hub.
• 23:19
  I mean, absolutely. Yeah, it became a big hub,
• 23:21
  yeah. It's weird. I can't go into specifics,
• 23:24
  though, because when I stopped working there,
• 23:26
  I had to sign a sassy little MDA. But I can assure
• 23:29
  you it wasn't anything glamorous, as glamorous
• 23:31
  as this industry might sound. I was, however,
• 23:34
  surrounded by people whose sole purpose every
• 23:37
  day was whether crypto went up or down, burdened
• 23:41
  by the question whether tomorrow crypto is going
• 23:43
  to go up or down. And after a while, I just thought,
• 23:46
  what an absolutely maddening and frightening
• 23:49
  way to spend your life. Especially in crypto,
• 23:53
  right? Because if I'm working for a big company,
• 23:55
  if I'm working for Walmart and I'm worried about
• 23:57
  the stock price, I can control that, right? I
• 24:00
  can say, all right, well, let's look at year
• 24:01
  -on -year sales and stores have been open for
• 24:03
  one year. And if those are up, that means we're
• 24:05
  selling more stuff. I can do a survey and find
• 24:08
  if people are happy with our customer service.
• 24:09
  And we can control this, right? If this store
• 24:12
  is not doing well, darn it, we're going to turn
• 24:13
  that store around. If you're selling crypto.
• 24:16
  I don't know what you're doing because there's
• 24:17
  no fundamentals here. We talk about stocks, we
• 24:19
  talk about fundamentals. Like what's the profit?
• 24:21
  What's the loss? What's the debt? In crypto,
• 24:24
  there is no fundamentals. The fundamentals is
• 24:26
  vibes. So all you have to do is hope that the
• 24:28
  vibes are good. And this means that there is
• 24:32
  huge opportunity in the crypto space for people
• 24:35
  to be scam artists. Because the worst thing you
• 24:38
  can do in the crypto space is say, hey, that's
• 24:40
  a scam. Like this isn't real. And so - It's a
• 24:43
  rug pull. You can't say that you're giving into
• 24:47
  fear, uncertainty and doubt you're funding. You
• 24:49
  can't do that. Right. So any negative information,
• 24:52
  like because there are scammers and the reason
• 24:54
  they're scammers because in crypto, because it's
• 24:56
  not regulated, scamming is basically not even
• 24:59
  illegal. So like if you're not doing it, you're
• 25:00
  not trying. So it's lots of scams. And but. that
• 25:06
  gives cover to scammers because you're not supposed
• 25:07
  to say bad things. All you can do is say more
• 25:09
  good stuff. And when you go into the message
• 25:13
  boards where people are talking about crypto,
• 25:14
  it is like an alternate universe because they're
• 25:16
  like, yeah, the country of Ecuador is going to
• 25:19
  be, their entire currency is going to be on crypto
• 25:21
  next year. It's going to be amazing. And it's
• 25:23
  like, okay, first off, why do you care about
• 25:25
  Ecuador? You can't even find it on a map. Like
• 25:27
  why? Oh no, the economy of Ecuador. What are
• 25:29
  we ever really going to do? But they're convinced
• 25:31
  that the entire world economy is going to collapse.
• 25:34
  And when it does, that their crypto will still
• 25:36
  be worth something. And therefore, they're going
• 25:38
  to buy all the Maseratis, right? But they are
• 25:40
  living in this little bubble where they are sure
• 25:42
  this is going to happen. It's actually very similar
• 25:44
  to the US. We've got this broad range of conspiracy
• 25:46
  theory called QAnon, where people are convinced
• 25:48
  that Donald Trump is going to arrest all of the
• 25:51
  pedophiles, which is very funny, but then what's
• 25:53
  going on? It kind of backfired recently. It's
• 25:56
  not, it's not working out the way they thought.
• 25:57
  They are still sure it's going to happen though.
• 25:59
  They're just waiting for it. And there's going
• 26:01
  to be this moment where all their relatives are
• 26:03
  making fun of them for years saying, what the
• 26:04
  hell are you doing? Are going to say, you were
• 26:07
  right the whole time. I'm so sorry. Please have
• 26:10
  mercy on me and give me a Maserati. And we get
• 26:12
  that. We get the same thing with Christian fundamentals.
• 26:15
  Jesus is going to come down with a sword and
• 26:17
  all the people who have been saying they're full
• 26:19
  of shit for years are going to now recognize
• 26:20
  this. The alien people, the people who believe
• 26:23
  the aliens are abducting people, they're going
• 26:24
  to have the day of disclosure. And then suddenly.
• 26:28
  Everyone's going to know aliens are real and
• 26:29
  they're going to apologize. And then all the
• 26:31
  people who beat them up are going to pee their
• 26:32
  pants and call the teacher mom. And then everyone's
• 26:34
  going to be very sad. Are there any commonalities
• 26:37
  to these men's conditions and why they end up
• 26:40
  turning into crypto bros? Yeah, it is. There
• 26:44
  is a deep sense of insecurity that is part of
• 26:46
  it. There's a recognition that at some level,
• 26:49
  what they've been told to expect. What, you know,
• 26:53
  the idea is, oh, I'm going to get a good job
• 26:55
  and then buy a house and have a beautiful wife,
• 26:58
  have all this. At some level, there's an understanding
• 27:00
  that that's not happening. And there's a deep
• 27:02
  sense of disappointment. And there's a need to
• 27:05
  try and fill that up and try and get back to
• 27:07
  that somehow. And there's a lot of bitterness
• 27:10
  that's involved in that. It's not quite as bad
• 27:12
  as you get when you get into the pickup artist
• 27:15
  guys or the incels, right? They're not at that
• 27:18
  level. But there is bitterness. There's also...
• 27:20
  a real belief that they are supposed to be doing
• 27:24
  better. There's a sense, and this is something
• 27:26
  we've inculcated, especially in the US, that
• 27:29
  everyone is special and everyone is beautiful
• 27:31
  and everyone's got this amazing life, and they
• 27:33
  don't. And they feel like they've been cheated.
• 27:35
  And they're looking for the cheat code that's
• 27:38
  going to get them back on top. There's also this
• 27:41
  real hatred of the people that are on top right
• 27:43
  now. The people that they hate most. are institutional
• 27:47
  finance. They hate guys on Wall Street. They
• 27:50
  hate guys who wear fancy suits. They hate those
• 27:53
  guys. And it really does look like those 1980s
• 27:56
  and 1990s movies, right? It is, you know, slobs
• 27:59
  versus snobs, and they're the slobs, and they're
• 28:01
  going to wind up winning at the end. And they've
• 28:03
  internalized that narrative. They really believe
• 28:05
  that that's what's going to happen. And it's
• 28:08
  not going to, but there's nothing you can say
• 28:11
  that's going to convince them of that. You spoke
• 28:14
  about... bitterness there's this image out there
• 28:16
  that at least in the west men are losing out
• 28:19
  in in this society that they are becoming less
• 28:21
  educated and less competitive in the job market
• 28:23
  while also having significantly higher prison
• 28:26
  and suicide rates richard reeves talks a lot
• 28:29
  about that now it feels like this feeling from
• 28:31
  men that they are being somehow set up by society
• 28:34
  is directly fueling the rise of the manosphere
• 28:38
  groups that are preaching domination So there's
• 28:50
  two things to think about here. The first is
• 28:52
  that if you have been on top for a couple of
• 28:55
  thousand years, then movements towards equality
• 28:58
  feel like discrimination. So if men have been
• 29:01
  on top, if men own 100 % of everything and they
• 29:03
  go, whoa, whoa, now we only own 95 % of everything.
• 29:06
  What the heck? This is terrible. What happened
• 29:09
  to that 5 %? That feels like discrimination because
• 29:11
  men believe this is their birthright. They're
• 29:13
  supposed to have this. And then suddenly they
• 29:15
  don't anymore. Well, obviously I'm not worse
• 29:17
  than my father and my grandfather was. I mean,
• 29:20
  they didn't even know how to play Call of Duty.
• 29:22
  So there must be something wrong with the world.
• 29:25
  The second part is there's really interesting
• 29:27
  research looking at what people think gender
• 29:29
  equality looks like, right? And what people think
• 29:32
  gender equality looks like is very different
• 29:34
  than actual gender equality. So if you look in
• 29:36
  a Hollywood movie, you look at the people behind,
• 29:38
  like the big, all the extras in a crowd scene,
• 29:41
  right? It turns out the extras in a crowd scene
• 29:43
  are generally about 20 % women, about 80 % men.
• 29:46
  And the reason for that is because if you make
• 29:49
  it actually equal 50 -50 between men and women
• 29:51
  as, you know, society is like extras more women
• 29:53
  and men on earth. then people think there's too
• 29:56
  many women in it. In a classroom, when women
• 30:00
  on average talk about 10 % of the time in an
• 30:02
  elementary and middle school classroom, 10 %
• 30:04
  of the time women are talking, 9 % of the time
• 30:05
  men are talking. When you do interventions to
• 30:07
  try and get that up to 25 % women, the men think
• 30:10
  women are talking too much, right? Oh, now you're
• 30:12
  screaming against men because they're not on
• 30:14
  there. In America, the most popular TV game show
• 30:16
  is Jeopardy. Jeopardy has made a concentrated
• 30:18
  effort to have one third of the players be women.
• 30:21
  And this has led people to say, you're just screaming
• 30:22
  against men now because it's one third women.
• 30:24
  It should be 98 % men. If you've been on top
• 30:28
  for a long time, it feels like discrimination.
• 30:29
  And there's a perception, right? Women, you don't
• 30:32
  have to get to 50 -50 for men to feel like they're
• 30:34
  being underrepresented. We just have a cognitive
• 30:36
  bias. We think everything should be mostly men.
• 30:38
  And when it's not, then we feel left out. We
• 30:40
  feel like we must be being discriminated against.
• 30:42
  This is also part of the same fallacy that leads
• 30:45
  people to believe that racial discrimination
• 30:46
  is happening against white people in the U .S.
• 30:48
  That's what we call the handicap parking fallacy,
• 30:50
  right? If I'm going to the mall because I'm a
• 30:53
  moron and it's the day before Christmas and there's
• 30:55
  no parking spots and I see a handicapped spot
• 30:57
  open by the front, I go, give these stupid spots
• 31:01
  away to handicapped people. If they didn't give
• 31:03
  that spot to him, I'd have that spot. That should
• 31:05
  be my spot. When, of course, if they had one
• 31:08
  for your handicapped spot, somebody else would
• 31:10
  have gotten there before I did. It's not my spot,
• 31:11
  but I still have the perception, oh, I could
• 31:14
  have done it. you know, things that are supposed
• 31:16
  to be helping other people says that's hurting
• 31:18
  me somehow. And of course, it's not hurting anybody,
• 31:21
  right? It's not your spot at the mall. It's not
• 31:23
  your spot at Harvard or Yale, but people still
• 31:25
  believe it. And the fact is there are bad actors
• 31:28
  in every society in the US and Europe who are
• 31:31
  fueling this, who are telling men, yeah, you're
• 31:33
  right. You are being discriminated against, right?
• 31:35
  We need to fight back against women. And that's
• 31:38
  really dangerous. It's dangerous because it fuels
• 31:40
  all sorts of nasty political views. but also
• 31:44
  because it feeds this idea of a zero -sum society,
• 31:46
  which is really dangerous. The idea that we have
• 31:48
  men who are saying, well, I oppose abortion rights.
• 31:51
  Well, that's not great. But then you have men
• 31:54
  who are saying, I oppose parental leave laws.
• 31:56
  In the US, we have zero weeks of federal parental
• 31:58
  leave, just no parental leave at all, just like
• 32:00
  us and the Australians, everyone else has a better
• 32:01
  idea of it. And since we don't have parental
• 32:03
  leave laws, we have men who are saying, well,
• 32:05
  I'm against parental leave laws because it helps
• 32:06
  women. Well, it doesn't hurt anybody to have
• 32:09
  parental leave laws to let women take time off
• 32:10
  to be with their new babies. But men are against
• 32:12
  it because, well, if it helps women, it's got
• 32:15
  to be bad for men. When in reality, the whole
• 32:17
  way society works is we can help all of us together
• 32:19
  at the same time. What's good for me is not necessarily
• 32:22
  bad for you. It can be good for everybody. And
• 32:24
  by fueling this idea of a zero -sum society,
• 32:26
  we're doing a disservice really to everybody.
• 32:29
  And we are further balkanizing society. And this
• 32:32
  is not a time where we need more balkanization.
• 32:35
  This perception is definitely having an impact
• 32:37
  on the political affiliations of men and women,
• 32:40
  isn't it? Since the polling shows that they're
• 32:42
  going in totally opposite directions. Yeah. So
• 32:45
  this is my day job is I actually am a pollster.
• 32:47
  I run political, lots of political polls in New
• 32:50
  Jersey and nationwide. And we are seeing so people
• 32:53
  talk about, you know, oh, men versus women and
• 32:57
  especially young people. There's this huge divide.
• 32:59
  The main driver of that divide is actually not
• 33:01
  that men are getting lots, lots more conservative,
• 33:04
  although the. The content of men's conservatism
• 33:06
  is changing. The content of young men's conservatism
• 33:08
  is very different than what older men. If you
• 33:10
  look at older men's conservatism, they basically
• 33:12
  just don't want to pay taxes. They just want
• 33:13
  lower taxes. They don't really give a shit about
• 33:15
  anything else. And everything else is something
• 33:16
  you say to people to get them to vote for lower
• 33:17
  taxes on rich people. And the difference is younger
• 33:20
  men actually do have, because they've been grown
• 33:23
  up online, they have very different views. Their
• 33:25
  views are much more misogynistic, much more anti
• 33:28
  -Semitic. There's a lot... of more problematic
• 33:31
  political views among young men. But it's not
• 33:33
  that young men are much more Republican, much
• 33:35
  more conservative than their parents, though,
• 33:36
  as I said, the content is different. It's rather
• 33:39
  that young women have, are much more radicalized.
• 33:42
  Young women have gone through society and gone,
• 33:44
  oh, oh, this is bad for us. We are, you know,
• 33:47
  because young women want to have college education.
• 33:49
  You know, they're having a problem. They can't
• 33:51
  find men who are as educated as they are. So
• 33:54
  they've been much more radicalized that they
• 33:55
  say, oh, wait, these groups want to take away
• 33:57
  our... rights or sovereignty over our own bodies.
• 33:59
  So they're becoming much more liberal. So we
• 34:01
  have a bigger gap between men and women in the
• 34:02
  younger ages, not because men are suddenly way
• 34:05
  more conservative, but rather that young women
• 34:07
  are much, much more liberal. And this is true
• 34:09
  in the US and in Europe, except in Scandinavia
• 34:12
  than we see anywhere else. And the reason you
• 34:15
  don't get Scandinavia is because it's not really,
• 34:17
  gender rights are not really big political issues
• 34:19
  in Scandinavia. They've already got this worked
• 34:20
  out. And the other place we don't see it as being
• 34:23
  a big problem is Montenegro, and God knows why
• 34:25
  that is. Just in the recent European social survey
• 34:27
  data, Montenegro winds up being the most gender
• 34:30
  nonconformist place on earth, and no one has
• 34:32
  any clue why. And we could find an expert on
• 34:35
  Montenegro and gender politics, but that person
• 34:37
  does not exist. So we just have no idea what's
• 34:39
  going on with that data, and most are just throwing
• 34:40
  that data out saying, we don't know what's up
• 34:41
  with Montenegro. I don't know. Maybe we could
• 34:43
  go there sometime. I don't know. We could see
• 34:45
  what's going on. But if I'm that part of it,
• 34:47
  I'd just rather be on a beach in Halkidiki or
• 34:48
  something rather than going to Montenegro. Are
• 34:52
  the Bitcoin bros then adjacent to these men's
• 34:55
  rights activists groups, such as the Manosphere
• 34:58
  and Pickup Artist? They are literally adjacent
• 35:00
  in that if you look at, so the best way to do
• 35:03
  this is you look at Reddit and you can actually
• 35:05
  see the connections. You can actually build yourself
• 35:07
  a little network of which forums, which subreddits
• 35:11
  connect to each other by which people are in
• 35:13
  which groups. And there are huge connections
• 35:16
  between the Bitcoin. And the one they talked
• 35:20
  about, the meme stocks, which is basically what's
• 35:22
  called the Wall Street bets group. So Wall Street
• 35:24
  bets and, you know, Bitcoin, all the Bitcoin
• 35:26
  groups. And they're very tightly connected to
• 35:28
  groups like pickup artists, men's rights activists
• 35:32
  and video games, new eugenics. You know, so basically
• 35:37
  the idea of drugs that are going to help your.
• 35:39
  performance as a man um not just dick pills but
• 35:42
  other all sorts of other pills and all sorts
• 35:44
  of biohacking stuff um and you know to a lesser
• 35:47
  extent conservative politics but also things
• 35:50
  like people who are really really into guns and
• 35:52
  tanks right people who will talk your ear off
• 35:54
  about exactly what kind of missiles and bombs
• 35:56
  are being used so these are all very tightly
• 35:59
  connected within reddit and they're much more
• 36:01
  connected they are to like you know forum that
• 36:03
  deals with football or forum that deals with
• 36:04
  you know golf like those are very very different
• 36:07
  and the fine watches people are in a totally
• 36:09
  separate area of reddit altogether as they should
• 36:12
  be because we need to segregate those guys off
• 36:13
  what's connecting these groups like is it just
• 36:18
  the fact that they're all men or that they're
• 36:20
  all men that feel slighted or that they're all
• 36:23
  men that feel that they've lost out in society
• 36:25
  they are because because what's like followers
• 36:28
  of andrew tate and some guy who's a hodler what
• 36:31
  do they have in common they have in common what's
• 36:34
  a they have that deep the deep belief that they
• 36:38
  are missing out, that they are not getting what
• 36:41
  they were promised. And they are trying to do
• 36:43
  something about that. I mean, Jordan Peterson,
• 36:45
  Andrew Tate, all these guys are saying the same
• 36:47
  thing, that men are being emasculated. There's
• 36:51
  something, it's not that you're bad, it's that
• 36:53
  society has failed you in some way. And if you
• 36:56
  go into the manosphere and you go into the beliefs,
• 37:00
  it is terrifying. I mean, the beliefs they have
• 37:02
  about, the misogynistic beliefs about... evolution
• 37:05
  of psychology about why all women lie all the
• 37:07
  time and why it's okay to trick women to having
• 37:09
  sex with you because that's what your evolution
• 37:11
  set up to do and that's what their evolution
• 37:12
  really set up to do it's all bullshit but they
• 37:15
  deeply believe this and it's all driven by the
• 37:17
  same by the same ideas driven by the same need
• 37:20
  to try and prove your masculinity to prove your
• 37:23
  and to really to say that the people who are
• 37:26
  on top should not be on top and you yourself
• 37:28
  should be on top you should be getting access
• 37:30
  and it can veer into violence very easily i mean
• 37:32
  this is the incels That goes straight into violence.
• 37:35
  I'm supposed to have sexual access to women.
• 37:36
  I was promised that. I don't have it. And I'm
• 37:39
  never going to get it. So therefore, I just need
• 37:40
  to kill women. And it veers into violence. And
• 37:42
  these are tightly related. I just wanted to clarify
• 37:46
  one thing. Crypto, from my limited understanding,
• 37:50
  at least at the beginning, was this sort of more
• 37:52
  like a pirate -y space, full of honest geeks,
• 37:57
  sort of like the beginnings of the internet as
• 37:59
  well. And then... it's somehow somewhere on the
• 38:03
  way got merged into like this pure libertarian
• 38:05
  ideology right it's all just about making money
• 38:09
  and fuck everything else can you pinpoint why
• 38:12
  and when did that happen and when did this like
• 38:16
  i wouldn't call it left -wing streak but maybe
• 38:18
  more like an anarchic streak within this crypto
• 38:21
  space got completely ran over and lost out we
• 38:25
  actually see this this tension between like as
• 38:28
  you say i think the honest geeks and if you honestly
• 38:30
  if you go back to like crypto stuff from the
• 38:32
  90s it's some of it's like so funny right uh
• 38:34
  when people realize oh we we have an asset we're
• 38:37
  gonna back it up with an asset initially They
• 38:39
  tried to use the service called eGold that was
• 38:41
  up in the US in the early 90s, where it's like,
• 38:43
  oh, we've got a pallet of gold and you can buy
• 38:45
  or sell little bits of that gold, right? Which
• 38:47
  is basically a cryptocurrency. And they eventually
• 38:49
  figured out, oh, it can be whatever we want.
• 38:50
  And they're having fun with this. Say, okay,
• 38:51
  I have a case of Diet Coke in a storage unit
• 38:55
  and you can buy and sell amounts of that Diet
• 38:58
  Coke and this is the way you're going to exchange
• 38:59
  value. Because it doesn't matter what it is.
• 39:01
  Eventually with crypto, they decided it doesn't
• 39:03
  need anything behind it. But there's this idea
• 39:05
  of, you know, hackers, of guys who are just having
• 39:07
  fun, who are doing something cool with code.
• 39:10
  And that merges very much into the cryogenics
• 39:13
  people who are the weirdest people on earth.
• 39:15
  But the cryogenics people who are also, yeah,
• 39:17
  they're just, they're techno -utopians, right?
• 39:19
  And there's that part of it. Then, always throughout
• 39:22
  though. Throughout this history, you get the
• 39:25
  libertarians coming in, the people who will not
• 39:27
  refer to U .S. dollars as dollars. Those are
• 39:29
  federal banknotes because they're not backed
• 39:30
  up by the dollar anymore. And these are the same
• 39:32
  people who tell you that if an American flag
• 39:34
  has a fringe on it, that represents a corporation
• 39:36
  that actually represents America and took over
• 39:38
  America. And it's ridiculous stuff. But the libertarians
• 39:41
  have always been there. And there is some argument
• 39:43
  to be made, right? And so some of the early versions
• 39:46
  of crypto did. We're really trying to get at
• 39:49
  avoiding. avoiding surveillance of your spending
• 39:52
  habits because the government knows where you
• 39:54
  spent your money. Like that's absolutely true.
• 39:55
  Like we do everything on credit cards now. The
• 39:57
  upside of cash was that cash is anonymous. And
• 40:01
  so, but the government doesn't like that. So
• 40:02
  the government now, you know, can in theory track
• 40:05
  all your spending. And so there are people saying,
• 40:07
  well, that's not okay. That's a libertarian idea
• 40:09
  and a reasonable libertarian idea to say we shouldn't
• 40:11
  have the government tracking our spending. Or
• 40:13
  I should be able to, you know, this is potentially
• 40:15
  a problem for civil liberties. If I'm giving
• 40:18
  money to a group the government doesn't like,
• 40:20
  they could know me, they could come after me.
• 40:22
  So I should have crypto so I can send money to
• 40:24
  people, to groups that I support, without being
• 40:27
  able to be put in jail for it. So those are all
• 40:30
  noble ideas. The problem is that those libertarians
• 40:33
  are also very close to the, I want to buy lots
• 40:37
  of guns and drugs and sex libertarians and do
• 40:39
  all sorts of things that are probably illegal
• 40:40
  libertarians. And no one's ever figured out how
• 40:43
  to separate those two groups out. And all the
• 40:46
  things that make... crypto good for the potentially
• 40:48
  positive side of libertarianism, also makes it
• 40:51
  good for the, but I want to buy drugs and I want
• 40:53
  to pay women for sex and I want to human trafficking
• 40:55
  people. No one's ever figured how to separate
• 40:58
  those guys out. And the dark side of that has
• 41:03
  taken over largely because the only real uses
• 41:06
  that anyone's come up with for crypto and crypto,
• 41:08
  people say, oh, we're going to find the good
• 41:09
  use case for crypto and for the blockchain. We
• 41:12
  haven't found the use case yet. I mean, this
• 41:14
  has been crypto. Bitcoin's been around since
• 41:16
  2009, right? Like if there were going to be a
• 41:19
  killer at use for it, we would have found it
• 41:22
  by now. But the only uses anyone's come up with
• 41:24
  it for are buying drugs, paying ransoms, and
• 41:30
  moving money illegally between people. That's
• 41:33
  all anyone's able to figure out how to do with
• 41:36
  it. I would propose this means it's actually
• 41:38
  not useful for other things, but this is what
• 41:40
  people have been able to do with it. And so the
• 41:41
  fact is that you've got, on one hand, the guys
• 41:44
  who actually believe in this utopian ideal of
• 41:48
  what's going to happen in the future with crypto.
• 41:49
  And they're not really, they're not using it
• 41:51
  to buy drugs and guns because they're not using
• 41:54
  it at all. Because if you believe that crypto
• 41:56
  is going to increase in value, the worst thing
• 41:58
  you can do is actually spend it. And so it's
• 42:00
  a currency, it's a great currency. Are you going
• 42:02
  to buy anything with it? Oh God, no, we'd never
• 42:04
  buy anything with it, right? And we have the
• 42:06
  horror story about the one guy, the first guy
• 42:07
  to ever buy anything with crypto who bought two
• 42:09
  Papa John's pizzas for 10 ,000 Bitcoin, you know,
• 42:12
  so it's a billion dollar pizzas. And I just feel
• 42:15
  so bad for this guy because every couple of years,
• 42:17
  reporters go back to his house and interview
• 42:18
  him. So how do you feel? You lost a billion dollars.
• 42:20
  And he's like, it's fine. I was the first one
• 42:22
  to do it. Just stop bothering this poor guy.
• 42:25
  He made a mistake. He knows it. So you've got
• 42:27
  those guys and you've got the guys who are actually
• 42:29
  using it who are. all russian criminals i mean
• 42:32
  it's all criminals in russia the former soviet
• 42:33
  republics that are actually using this for um
• 42:36
  you know for ransomware or for buying drugs or
• 42:40
  for moving you know money around to terrorist
• 42:42
  organizations and that's a problem right that
• 42:45
  this is and so this was always the case for why
• 42:47
  we need to regulate and restrict it from a governmental
• 42:49
  level is that and this was the case why it was
• 42:51
  you know really a crackdown in the 90s like the
• 42:54
  only thing you guys are doing with this is buying
• 42:56
  drugs so it's one thing if you got a lot of bunch
• 42:58
  of little are doing this because they're into
• 43:01
  cryogenics or they're just computer hobbies.
• 43:03
  They think it's neat. Okay, that's fine. But
• 43:05
  once you start buying drugs with it, with your
• 43:07
  e -gold, we're going to shut that stuff down
• 43:09
  real fast. It hasn't gotten better. All it's
• 43:12
  gotten is more acceptance. There's more people
• 43:13
  doing it. So politically, it's harder to actually
• 43:15
  crack down on it. But the actual use cases hasn't
• 43:17
  changed at all. You said that one thing that
• 43:20
  unites all of the crypto bros, all of these guys,
• 43:22
  is that they absolutely loathe the elites who
• 43:26
  are running the show. Why are they then not veering
• 43:30
  into a more left -wing space instead of trying
• 43:32
  to play this digital casino and rig the system
• 43:37
  from within? So there's two reasons for this.
• 43:40
  The first is, I would actually say, it's not
• 43:42
  clear that they would have to. There's nothing
• 43:44
  that's obvious about... guys who are into crypto,
• 43:47
  that they actually would be on the Republican
• 43:50
  or on the conservative side. That's not at all
• 43:52
  obvious. In fact, the dominant political view
• 43:55
  from them up until 2024 was that they don't vote.
• 43:58
  They just think all parties are corrupt. They
• 43:59
  don't pay attention to what they don't know about.
• 44:01
  They don't care about us. They just stay out
• 44:02
  of it. We saw in 2024 a big movement of crypto
• 44:04
  guys moving towards the US, towards the Republican
• 44:07
  Party, and towards Donald Trump. And that was
• 44:09
  because he actually said, Yeah, I'm in favor
• 44:12
  of crypto. You guys are giving me a bunch of
• 44:14
  money. Yes, I'm in favor of anybody who gives
• 44:15
  me a bunch of money. Actually, the crypto crash
• 44:18
  we've had over lost half its value in the last
• 44:20
  month or two is entirely a result of those guys
• 44:23
  figuring out that Trump was actually not going
• 44:24
  to do anything because he actually doesn't understand,
• 44:26
  doesn't care, except the extent he can. basically
• 44:28
  start his own cryptocurrency and do a rug pull
• 44:30
  and make a bunch of money off of it. That's all
• 44:31
  he cares about. And so he's actually not doing
• 44:33
  anything to help them. And so it went up and
• 44:36
  doubled in value on the strength that Trump was
• 44:38
  going to come in and regulate and do all this
• 44:40
  stuff that was going to help them have a strategic
• 44:42
  Bitcoin reserve, which is just a wild idea that
• 44:46
  the government's going to regulate the price
• 44:47
  of Bitcoin, which is like, no, that'd actually
• 44:49
  be bad for you guys. That would stop her from
• 44:51
  going up. What are you talking about? The reason
• 44:54
  you do this is because the US owns like 2 % of
• 44:56
  all the Bitcoin on earth because they've seized
• 44:57
  it. from crimes and they just don't know what
• 44:59
  to do with this system, the treasury. Anyway,
• 45:01
  so it's not clear that they would actually be
• 45:03
  Republican conservative. However, the other part
• 45:06
  of it is that they do believe that they are,
• 45:08
  their interests are fundamentally opposed by
• 45:11
  women and by gay people. And so any party that
• 45:14
  represents women and gay people and racial minorities
• 45:17
  are going to be the outs with them. You know,
• 45:19
  they think, oh, well, that's not our type of
• 45:21
  people, right? Because those are the people that
• 45:23
  are helping the ones who are trying to discriminate
• 45:25
  against us because they believe they're being
• 45:26
  discriminated against. How does the rise of the
• 45:31
  AI overlords, a completely new type of geeks
• 45:34
  that are taking over, factor into all of this?
• 45:36
  Does it have an impact on the crypto bros? Is
• 45:39
  it making them slightly irrelevant because there's
• 45:41
  like a new game in town? Or are they just like
• 45:44
  trying to jump on the bandwagon in any way possible?
• 45:48
  I don't think they're trying to jump on the bandwagon.
• 45:50
  We are seeing there's not actually a huge overlap
• 45:52
  between them. I would argue that AI is actually
• 45:55
  worse as a way to try and perform masculinity.
• 45:58
  So AI, yes. First off, it's run by very large
• 46:01
  corporations to start with. So already we're
• 46:03
  getting against the libertarian ethos. These
• 46:05
  are the people in power already. And so no one's
• 46:07
  going to say, yes, Microsoft, fight the power.
• 46:10
  We're going to join Microsoft to fight the power.
• 46:12
  But also because it's not as good a way, right?
• 46:15
  Yes, if I'm a prompt engineer, which is a word
• 46:17
  that should not exist, but if I'm a prompt engineer,
• 46:19
  I can do better, right? And we do have men who
• 46:22
  are trying to show, and again, Like with crypto,
• 46:25
  it is very gendered, very sexed. It is men who
• 46:28
  are doing it and straight men are doing it. I
• 46:30
  can do a little better than you can, but anyone
• 46:36
  can use this, right? That's the whole point of
• 46:37
  the LLMs is that it's easy to use. And so I,
• 46:41
  therefore, am not performing anything by doing
• 46:43
  it because whatever I do, you can probably do
• 46:45
  too pretty easily. And so I'm not performing
• 46:49
  anything by being good at it. So it doesn't work
• 46:51
  as well as a performance masculinity. The one
• 46:54
  thing it does do is that the one attraction,
• 46:57
  the one overlap, is the idea that AI is going
• 46:59
  to break down all of the existing power structures.
• 47:02
  All the people on top are going to come down.
• 47:04
  There's going to be this great reversal. And
• 47:06
  now these new people are going to be on top.
• 47:07
  People who know to use AI will be on top. They
• 47:09
  know to use computers. They can do that. They'll
• 47:11
  be on top. And everyone else, all the boys who
• 47:13
  beat them up in high school and have those popped
• 47:14
  collars on their polo shirts, they're going to
• 47:16
  be down at the bottom. It's not as powerful.
• 47:19
  as Bitcoin is for that purpose. But there is
• 47:22
  some overlap there and the idea of this great
• 47:24
  reversal that's going to come through. I'm actually
• 47:27
  doing work now on AI and we find some of the
• 47:30
  same ideas are driving it, right? Largely driven
• 47:32
  by that great reversal idea and that this is
• 47:34
  computers and therefore this is going to run
• 47:36
  everything. It's going to replace all those people
• 47:38
  who have soft skills. It doesn't seem to be as
• 47:41
  gendered as Bitcoin is. I mean, Bitcoin, I remember
• 47:44
  when the first Bitcoin rise came in, everyone's
• 47:46
  saying, why aren't women buying Bitcoin? The
• 47:48
  answer is we'll hire Kourtney Kardashian to talk
• 47:50
  up Bitcoin, right? And say, well, all women should
• 47:52
  do it. And for me, the question was not why aren't
• 47:55
  men buying? It's like, why is anyone buying?
• 47:57
  Why are men buying this? This is ridiculous.
• 47:59
  I was buying it a little bit. They got me. They
• 48:01
  got you. They got a lot of people. I have to
• 48:03
  be honest here. They got me. They got like 40%.
• 48:06
  There was this sort of craze that all of my friends
• 48:08
  started talking about it. And I was totally part
• 48:10
  of it. And we started egging each other on with
• 48:13
  absolutely no reason whatsoever. And then I don't
• 48:16
  think anybody made any money. But you weren't
• 48:18
  alone, right? And this is one thing I always
• 48:20
  tell people is that this actually matters. Because
• 48:24
  17 % of everyone in the US has bought Bitcoin
• 48:27
  or bought crypto at some point. 40 % of men under
• 48:30
  the age of 30, you know, five years ago. So 40
• 48:32
  % of men who are currently under 35 have bought
• 48:34
  crypto, right? If you were buying crypto and
• 48:36
  you were like a 20 something or a 30 something
• 48:38
  guy, you were kind of almost in the majority.
• 48:40
  Like everybody was doing that, right? Yeah. And
• 48:44
  that's why this matters. Again, if this was like
• 48:46
  five guys in someone's basement doing it. This
• 48:49
  would be something we could look at and go, that's
• 48:50
  funny. Look at these guys doing this. You know,
• 48:52
  we talk about the same. We talk about magic at
• 48:54
  the gathering tournaments. Like, oh, yeah, cool.
• 48:56
  These guys are doing this. Good for them. Right.
• 48:58
  But it's not. It's like one in seven American
• 49:01
  voters. It's almost a majority of men under 35.
• 49:05
  This is huge. This is lots of people. And we
• 49:08
  just. not paying attention to it because honestly,
• 49:10
  it's difficult to talk about because it's complicated.
• 49:12
  And if you're talking to someone, look, I have
• 49:15
  an hour to talk with you. If I'm trying to do
• 49:16
  a three minute news hit on this, we don't even
• 49:18
  get past the, so what is a crypto, right? We
• 49:21
  don't even get past that. And then I'm going
• 49:23
  to talk about Bigfoot. It doesn't work. Can I
• 49:25
  confess something? I worked in the crypto industry
• 49:27
  and - I still can't explain anything. I can't
• 49:31
  explain what crypto... There's something about
• 49:33
  ledgers and stuff that made my brain hurt. Yeah,
• 49:35
  you're talking about the blockchain. It's all
• 49:38
  in the blockchain, bro. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mining,
• 49:40
  blockchain, you know. You learn how to pretend.
• 49:43
  I will say that is the one area where we actually
• 49:46
  are seeing a problem for the crypto guys is in
• 49:48
  the mines, right? Because these are giant data
• 49:50
  centers. And when the price of crypto falls,
• 49:52
  as it has, and the price of electricity rises,
• 49:54
  as it has, they are less profitable than they
• 49:57
  used to be. And so we are having people who run
• 49:59
  these crypto mines saying, I could run this warehouse
• 50:02
  full of servers. I could lease this out to Google
• 50:04
  or to OpenAI or someone and make a lot more money.
• 50:08
  So we actually are seeing a decline in the amount
• 50:10
  of processing space that's going into it, which
• 50:13
  is good. in that it was being wasted on cryptocurrency.
• 50:17
  I mean, cryptocurrency, famously said, is like
• 50:19
  if you had your Ford F -150, you let it idle,
• 50:21
  and by idling it, it would solve Sudokus, and
• 50:24
  sometimes you could turn the Sudokus and sell
• 50:26
  them for lottery tickets, right? It's a pointless
• 50:29
  use of resources, but I don't think AI and LLMs
• 50:32
  are actually that much better use of resources.
• 50:34
  So, you know, this is a, you know, aliens versus
• 50:37
  predators situation. You know, whoever wins,
• 50:38
  we lose. It was funny, though, how quickly you
• 50:42
  can get away with just like throwing uh these
• 50:45
  words around like hodling and whatever like when
• 50:48
  lambo and people are like oh this guy knows his
• 50:50
  stuff and i was like i totally don't know my
• 50:52
  stuff but also it's it's a performance right
• 50:54
  and if you're performing that way i want to keep
• 50:56
  up and it's also it's a lot of fomo i mean it's
• 50:58
  a lot of people being terrified they're missing
• 51:00
  out this is the next big thing i don't understand
• 51:02
  it i just throw money at it until it goes away
• 51:04
  this is actually also true in financial services
• 51:06
  in the financial service industry if i see wait
• 51:08
  the competition's buying this Goldman Sachs is
• 51:11
  buying up a bunch of crypto. Oh, shit. Why do
• 51:13
  they know that I don't? If they're buying it,
• 51:15
  then I have to. It becomes a self -fulfilling
• 51:16
  prophecy where everyone buys it and you wind
• 51:18
  up holding on to all this stuff with no idea
• 51:20
  if it actually works or not. And this is actually
• 51:21
  one of the big structural dangers of crypto right
• 51:23
  now is the idea that enough big companies start
• 51:26
  buying it that if it crashes, as it must, then
• 51:30
  the government's going to come in and save them.
• 51:33
  The goal of crypto, the crypto industry right
• 51:35
  now, is to get too big to fail. Right. And this
• 51:38
  is why they want to be regulated. You think libertarians,
• 51:41
  they don't want to be regulated. They want to
• 51:42
  be regulated because they're regulated. That
• 51:44
  means the government's going to backstop them.
• 51:45
  They want to be regulated because the only way
• 51:47
  you get the price of Bitcoin to go up even more
• 51:49
  is to get more people to put money into it. And
• 51:52
  all these guys on Reddit, they've already put
• 51:55
  all their money into it. Like there's no more
• 51:56
  money left. So you have to get like average investors
• 51:59
  to be comfortable doing that. They're not going
• 52:00
  to do it as long as this unregulated wild west.
• 52:04
  And so you have to get regulated. But if it's
• 52:05
  regulated. then it loses its attraction. And
• 52:09
  I think this is the fundamental contradiction
• 52:10
  that is why this is not going to take over the
• 52:12
  world, because you need it to be regulated so
• 52:14
  you can get more money in the system. But the
• 52:16
  more regulated and the more average investors
• 52:18
  are doing it, the less attractive it is to the
• 52:20
  guys who are the backbone of the entire thing,
• 52:22
  who are trying to rebel against everyone, want
• 52:23
  the entire financial system to come down. They
• 52:25
  hate the investment banks. And while the investment
• 52:28
  banks are now running crypto, then why would
• 52:31
  we even do this? right? We want the value of
• 52:33
  crypto to go up. We're going to go to the moon,
• 52:35
  right? It's going to be a million dollars, okay?
• 52:38
  The only way that happens is if it starts being
• 52:40
  used as a currency and we use the currency. And
• 52:42
  the whole point of a currency is currencies maintain
• 52:44
  their value, which means it doesn't go up. So
• 52:46
  there's a fundamental disconnect there that these
• 52:49
  guys, as much as they talk about libertarian
• 52:51
  economics and all that, just are unable to recognize.
• 52:54
  They just can't do it. I have no doubt that in
• 52:57
  20 years or 50 years, we're going to look back
• 52:59
  at this like it's Dutch tulip mania, right? Like
• 53:02
  this is, can you believe people actually believe
• 53:04
  this was real? Oh my God, how dumb were people
• 53:06
  back then? But the people who were buying and
• 53:09
  selling tulips, it made sense. And that actually,
• 53:11
  I would argue, probably makes more sense because
• 53:12
  at least you get a tulip out of it. Last two
• 53:15
  questions. So what does the future hold for the
• 53:17
  crypto bros? Well, I do think you're going, I
• 53:21
  think it's... So crypto is never going to be
• 53:23
  what they want to be. It's just not going to
• 53:25
  happen. And everything we know about psychology
• 53:28
  tells us, it's tempting to think that, well,
• 53:32
  when the future they prophesied doesn't happen,
• 53:35
  they're going to go, oh, well, never mind. But
• 53:38
  psychology tells us that's never what happens,
• 53:40
  right? Like Jesus said he would be back in like
• 53:42
  30 years within that generation. And I can check
• 53:45
  my watch and it's 2026 now and that hasn't happened
• 53:48
  yet. That doesn't mean people stop believing
• 53:49
  in Jesus. right? The great disappointment in
• 53:52
  the US in the 19th century, you know, where the
• 53:55
  world was about to end and 10 ,000 people sold
• 53:57
  all their belongings and were waiting on the
• 53:58
  hill for the world to end, and it didn't happen.
• 54:00
  Well, people, when the world doesn't end, when
• 54:03
  you don't get this fantastic reversal, they don't
• 54:05
  give up. The QAnon people have not given up somehow,
• 54:08
  right? They think Donald Trump is going to turn
• 54:10
  in all the child predators at some point. The
• 54:13
  ET people, the UFO people haven't given up. They're
• 54:15
  going to stick around. However, I do think the
• 54:18
  mainstream appeal is going to go away when it
• 54:21
  becomes clear. So eventually the price is going
• 54:22
  to stagnate or it's going to keep up and down
• 54:24
  and up and down. And it's going to be harder
• 54:25
  to convince people that yes, to buy into the,
• 54:28
  to drink the Kool -Aid or Flavor -Aid and show
• 54:30
  that eventually it's going to be worth a million
• 54:31
  dollars. It's going to be harder and harder to
• 54:33
  recruit people to that. And so the average price
• 54:35
  is going to fall and fall and fall slowly, but
• 54:37
  surely, but the people who are into it are going
• 54:38
  to stick with it forever. And other men are going
• 54:40
  to find some other way to perform masculinity.
• 54:41
  And that's the nice thing about masculinity.
• 54:43
  I mean, masculinity in general, not very nice.
• 54:45
  But one of the nice things about it is it is
• 54:46
  so flexible, is that there's all these ways you
• 54:48
  can perform masculinity. One of the examples
• 54:51
  of this is cooking. So cooking used to be just
• 54:53
  a totally feminine thing, something women did.
• 54:55
  And then in the late 90s or mid to late 90s in
• 54:58
  the U .S., there was this TV show called Iron
• 54:59
  Chef, a Japanese TV show that they exported over
• 55:02
  in America, where it was like World Wrestling
• 55:04
  Federation, except for cooking the Iron Chef,
• 55:07
  the invincible men of Japanese cuisine. And they're
• 55:09
  going in this giant stadium and there's applause
• 55:12
  and they're doing weird ingredients and there's
• 55:13
  fire and there's all this crazy stuff happening.
• 55:16
  And it became a huge hit in the U .S. And it
• 55:18
  fundamentally transformed, first off, the way
• 55:20
  cooking was presented on TV. Cooking stopped
• 55:22
  being something that was Julia Child making a
• 55:24
  recipe and then showing how it worked. It started
• 55:26
  being about men with fire and fat and taking
• 55:29
  risks and doing crazy stuff and showing knowledge.
• 55:31
  And because it changed on TV, and so all the
• 55:34
  TV shows about cooking now are competition shows
• 55:35
  and it's all male -dominated, it became something
• 55:38
  men did to prove how macho they were, to prove
• 55:41
  how masculine they were. Masculinity is incredibly
• 55:44
  adaptable. In the space of about 10 years, between
• 55:46
  about 1998 and 2008, cooking went from being
• 55:48
  something feminine to something masculine. Because
• 55:50
  we can redefine anything as being masculine if
• 55:52
  we really try. These performances are incredibly,
• 55:55
  incredibly malleable. And so these guys are going
• 56:00
  to stick with it. But the generation that was
• 56:03
  after them, you know, I've got a 16 -year -old
• 56:05
  son. So his generation thinks this is the dumbest
• 56:07
  thing they've ever heard. And they're going to
• 56:09
  find some other equally stupid thing to do to
• 56:11
  try and perform their masculinity. This has been
• 56:14
  going on for a long time. The only difference
• 56:15
  today is it's more obvious because of the internet,
• 56:18
  because these local ideas, it used to be these
• 56:20
  ideas about these stupid things meant to prove
• 56:22
  how macho they were. Well, these were local and
• 56:25
  regional and they would just go by word of mouth.
• 56:28
  And now they are international. They spread very
• 56:31
  quickly because of YouTube and Reddit and all
• 56:33
  that. So there's going to be another thing that
• 56:35
  comes after that. Another thing comes after that.
• 56:37
  It'll be cyclical and the cycles will probably
• 56:39
  speed up. The threats, the fear, if other people
• 56:43
  are worried, like what's the bad thing that can
• 56:44
  happen here is if it does get that regulatory
• 56:46
  state, if it does, crypto does get big enough
• 56:49
  that it gets state support that becomes too big
• 56:52
  to fail. And once that happens, well, when it
• 56:55
  does crash, we're all on the hook for it. It's
• 56:58
  funny how it's all like culture based, isn't
• 57:01
  it? I told you I live in Japan and here an idea
• 57:03
  of an appealing man is totally different. from
• 57:08
  the west you know it's based on like idols and
• 57:10
  hosts who are these very thin very androgynous
• 57:13
  looking men with beautiful hair and sometimes
• 57:16
  they have like glitter on their face and and
• 57:19
  this is like the the epitome of masculinity here
• 57:22
  there's no body hair there's no muscles you know,
• 57:26
  quite the opposite. And that's actually a recent
• 57:27
  development in Japan. So if we go back 20 years,
• 57:30
  you had the Salomon as the epitome of masculinity.
• 57:34
  I mean, they still exist, but they're not like
• 57:35
  desirable. And this actually, there's actually
• 57:37
  been a lot of research on this showing that this
• 57:38
  weird transition you had in Japan, and actually
• 57:41
  they had a very similar one in Ireland, where
• 57:42
  they just transitioned, the economy changes,
• 57:44
  right? They did in Japan, you have a lifetime
• 57:46
  job, like that just went away with the Great
• 57:48
  Recession, sorry, the 80s. And so masculinity
• 57:50
  changed along with it. You know, masculinity
• 57:52
  is incredibly adaptable. Yeah. Yeah. When I was
• 57:56
  growing up, my mom told me the one thing that
• 57:58
  you have to have is a hair on your chest. That's,
• 58:00
  that's what you need to do. But you know, I'm
• 58:02
  from the Balkans originally. So again, you got
• 58:05
  a slightly different culture. Yeah. I'm good
• 58:08
  there. Thanks mom. Very last question. I have
• 58:11
  to ask, you know, doing my, my bit of journalism
• 58:15
  here. Are you Satoshi Nakamoto? And this book
• 58:18
  is just a way. for you to throw off the scent?
• 58:21
  No, because Satoshi Nakamoto, the mythical founder
• 58:24
  of Bitcoin, you know, so the person who probably
• 58:26
  founded Bitcoin, who is either a person or a
• 58:28
  set of people, he's a, whoever he is, is a multi
• 58:33
  -billionaire because he has lots and lots of
• 58:35
  Bitcoin. So if I had billions and billions of
• 58:37
  dollars, I'd probably have a nicer house. I'd
• 58:40
  be laying on a beach somewhere. So apparently
• 58:42
  he hasn't touched his wallet. That's what they
• 58:44
  say. And all of these untold billions. are still
• 58:47
  there. So you could potentially fit the bill.
• 58:49
  It could have been a fugue state and I bought
• 58:51
  it and didn't know it. I was doing SETI at home
• 58:53
  at the time rather than Bitcoin. This is my mistake.
• 58:56
  Perfect. Thank you so much for this amazing conversation.
• 59:00
  Where can people get the book? Sure. So the book
• 59:02
  is called Bitcoin Bros. I have a copy right here.
• 59:05
  Masculinity, Cryptocurrency, and the Future of
• 59:07
  Men. It's out from Bloomsbury Press. It is available
• 59:09
  in all good bookstores and probably even some
• 59:11
  bad ones. All right, cool. Do you have any social
• 59:14
  media where people can check up on you? Sure,
• 59:15
  I am on Twitter and on BlueSky at DanCasino,
• 59:20
  D -A -N -C -A -S -S -I -N -O. All right, Professor
• 59:24
  Casino, thank you so much. Have a great day.
• 59:26
  Hey, peeps. Thank you so much for listening.
• 59:28
  Please subscribe to the podcast on YouTube. Follow
• 59:29
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• 59:32
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• 59:34
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• 59:36
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• 59:38
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• 59:40
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• 59:43
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• 59:45
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• 59:47
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• 59:49
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• 59:52
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