Crypto’s ‘true believers’ pose for a Vanity Fair glow-up — it backfires

Vanity Fair just published an embarrassing profile of crypto’s self-described “true believers,” complete with a photoshoot at a $300 million Lower East Side hotel. 

Its headline read “Crypto’s True Believers Demand to Be Taken Seriously.” The internet, however, did the exact opposite.

The feature profiles Mike Novogratz of Galaxy Digital, OpenSea co-founder Devin Finzer, BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes (off-camera), ARK Invest’s Cathie Wood, Polychain Capital’s Olaf Carlson-Wee, and others.

Some brought personal hair and makeup teams. Danny Ryan bragged about pants with a hole in the crotch. 

Novogratz made sure to tell the story of a 4am nightclub hangover. Meltem Demirors texted Finzer’s girlfriend, “You look like a clown.”

The most embarrassing crypto photo of the year so far

Reactions to the shoot were immediate. Nic Carter posted that Vanity Fair “did ‘em dirty” alongside a picture of the original shoot on which it was based, namely the Alliance of Magicians photo from Arrested Development.

Another observer called out the absurdity of Finzer doing a glamour shoot “while delaying your token for the 14th time.”

Indeed, the day before the article dropped, Finzer confirmed on X that his OpenSea token SEA, originally scheduled for March 30 after numerous prior delays, would be delayed yet again. The timing was brutal.

For further context, the valuation of his NFT marketplace OpenSea collapsed from $13 billion in January 2022 to under $2 billion by late 2023, and NFTs have not recovered since. 

Meanwhile, at the shoot, Finzer’s girlfriend told Vanity Fair she had “Armani Privé flying in” and “Jean Paul Gaultier haute couture.”

Novogratz’s LUNA tattoo was not visible, but Armani Privé was

Novogratz still has a LUNA tattoo inspired by Do Kwon’s collapsed pyramid scheme that Novogratz promoted.

He etched it on himself in early 2022 after LUNA crossed $100. 

Galaxy Digital had negotiated a deal to buy LUNA at a 30% discount, promoted it publicly, then quietly sold. By March 2022, Galaxy had offloaded nearly its entire stake, before it collapsed for everyone else.

The token and its stablecoin went to $0 two months later, erasing more than $40 billion in market valuation. In March 2025, Galaxy agreed to pay $200 million to settle with New York’s attorney general. 

Novogratz called the tattoo a “good reminder of hubris.” He showed up to the shoot in a full-length jacket, hiding it from Vanity Fair.

Read more: The high-profile LUNA investors — from prime ministers to beauty queens

Cathie Wood believed in the wrong thing

Cathie Wood was present for the crypto Vanity Fair shoot, despite her flagship ARK Innovation ETF still trading 54% beneath its 2021 peak.

By 2024, Morningstar had ranked her fund family as America’s top wealth-destroying fund family over the past decade.

In 2020, Wood was hailed as the world’s best stock picker and appeared on the cover of Bloomberg Businessweek as the “Believer.” By 2022, she was the worst. 

Wood predicted bitcoin would reach $1.5 million. It’s still 95% short of her forecast.

Carlson-Wee appeared at the shoot with bleached-blond hair and outrageous apparel. In February 2025, he appeared in a video with Kanye West during West’s “Swasticoin” memecoin saga.

He reposted a photo with West, captioned “future of finance.” He didn’t comment on the Nazi branding.

Erik Voorhees, also in the cover feature, was charged by the SEC in 2014 for selling unregistered securities. ShapeShift, which he founded, settled with the SEC again in 2024 for acting as an unregistered dealer. 

Voorhees founded and promoted Venice Token, which is down 75% from its all-time high. He also promoted Thorchain for years, which is down 97% from its all-time high.

Voorhees’ former employer BitInstant was shut down by the government. Its founder Charlie Shrem went to prison.

Crypto vanity on display in haute couture

It was not as though Vanity Fair merely editorialized their embarrassment. The influencers themselves provided the most damning material. For example, Demirors recalled being “drunk and army-crawling across the table” at an Ethereum conference. 

Someone at the photoshoot displayed a $200 Palauan ID he uses to access offshore derivatives platforms. “Everyone does this,” he claimed. 

Novogratz described partying until 4am at age 59. Finzer’s girlfriend referred to herself as his “product mommy.”

The crypto market has lost roughly $2 trillion since its October 2025 peak. BTC has dropped more than 40% from its all-time high, while ether is down roughly 53%.

Solana has fallen closer to 67%. 

The people demanding to be taken seriously include a man tattooed with a reminder of a $40 billion collapse, the worst fund manager in America by Morningstar’s measure, the promoter of a token down 97%, and an NFT CEO whose token launch has been delayed so many times his own community lost count. 

Vanity Fair, to its credit, let them tell on themselves.

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