Vanity Fair’s recent profile of “crypto’s true believers” has ignited a fresh debate about how mainstream media frames the industry — and whether that framing does a disservice to the engineers, governors and builders quietly running its infrastructure.
What Vanity Fair published
The glossy piece leaned into a highly stylized, caricatured portrait of longtime crypto participants: dim lighting, jewel tones, animal prints and bright suits, with captions such as “the bitcoin playboy,” “the couture evangelist” and “the build‑a‑bear and the product mommy.” The article describes these figures as “zealots who are holding the line,” and presents early Bitcoin adopters as a cultish subculture that refuses to accept the movement’s setbacks.
The profile also revisits the post‑2008 origins of Bitcoin, noting how the Lehman Brothers collapse “took with it the myth of institutional security” and helped spur a generation of cypherpunks who believed cryptography could redistribute power in ways regulators never would. Still, critics say VF’s overall tone reduces that historical context to a punchline.
Community backlash
The piece prompted immediate pushback across X (formerly Twitter) from builders, founders and governance participants who say the story recycles the same “degen” archetypes legacy outlets prefer because they’re clickable — and in doing so erases the industry’s sober, technical work.
Tally founder Dennison Bertram — who worked as a fashion photographer for over a decade before building in crypto — published a detailed thread arguing the photography (credited to Jeremy Liebman) and editorial choices are “a deliberate work of mockery.” Bertram wrote that the article was “mean spirited” and took issue with VF’s decision to spotlight theatrical personalities rather than people shipping protocols, standards and tooling for billions in on‑chain value.
Others pointed to perceived hypocrisy when high‑profile figures were photographed living large even as they publicly blamed market conditions for delays to projects. One X user highlighted that contrast with a screenshot and the quip, “We are not a serious industry,” reflecting how optics feed the narrative.
Why this matters
The kerfuffle exposes two recurring tensions: mainstream media’s appetite for sensational, character‑driven stories, and the crypto community’s frustration that substantive engineering and governance work goes underreported. Critics argue that narratives focused on decadence and spectacle make it easier to dismiss the sector’s sustained efforts — from testnets and DAOs to protocol maintenance and governance — as mere noise.
At the same time, Vanity Fair’s piece did reassert a historical throughline about crypto’s origins in post‑crisis disillusionment, even if readers dispute the tone. The debate that followed shows the industry is still negotiating how it wants to be seen by the broader public: as a fringe lifestyle or as an emergent layer of global financial and technical infrastructure.
Bottom line
The Vanity Fair profile has become a flashpoint in a larger conversation about representation and journalistic responsibility. For critics, the lesson is simple: if mainstream outlets want to write about whether “crypto is dead,” they should also talk to the coders, protocol maintainers and DAO operators who keep the networks running every day — not only the flashiest personalities who make for good photographs.
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