Vanity Fair’s recent profile of “crypto’s true believers” set off a fresh wave of controversy by leaning hard into caricature. The piece paints long‑time crypto participants as flamboyant, out‑of‑touch maximalists — think dim lighting, jewel tones, animal prints and bright suits — and positions them as nostalgic, cultish figures who won’t admit the dream is over.
The feature pairs those visuals with tongue‑in‑cheek captions — from “the bitcoin playboy” and “the couture evangelist” to “the build‑a‑bear and the product mommy” — and frames early Bitcoin adopters as online cypherpunks who retreated into an echo chamber after the 2008 financial crisis. The article explicitly nods to the post‑Lehman disillusionment that birthed many in the movement, but its overall tone treats today’s advocates as a comic spectacle rather than a serious constituency.
That tone drew sharp pushback across social media. Founders, builders and governance participants argued that legacy outlets repeatedly spotlight clickable “degen” stereotypes instead of the engineers, protocol teams and DAO operators who actually ship infrastructure and manage billions in on‑chain value. One public reaction captured the mood: “We are not a serious industry,” read a viral post mocking the Vanity Fair framing.
Among the most vocal critics was Dennison Bertram, founder of Tally and a former fashion photographer whose credits include ELLE, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan and luxury brands. Bertram dissected the Vanity Fair photographs and accused photographer Jeremy Liebman and the article of deliberate mockery. “The Vanity Fair article was a setup to mock crypto and those it depicted,” he wrote, calling the piece a “hit piece” and arguing the imagery and captions erased the ecosystem’s sober, technical labor.
The profile also featured recognizable names. The piece appeared the same day Devin Finzer — who had publicly cited unfavorable market conditions for delaying $SEA — was photographed living the high‑life, a juxtaposition that fueled additional online snark.
Critics say the real problem isn’t merely one unflattering feature but a recurring media pattern: recycling the same archetypes that drive clicks and, in the process, flattening a diverse and technically complex movement into a handful of stereotypes. Their plea is straightforward: if outlets want to claim “serious” coverage of crypto, they should talk to the people running testnets, writing protocol code, managing on‑chain governance and building tooling — not just the most photogenic personalities.
Source notes: reactions appeared on X; photo analysis and industry context were drawn from public posts by Dennison Bertram and other builders. Cover image and BTCUSD chart used with the original article were credited to Perplexity and TradingView.
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