You know “The Bitcoin Guy.” He’s a 27-year-old white Harvard dropout from Brookline, Massachusetts, perpetually reclining in a $700 ergonomic desk chair with his feet—adorned by holey white athletic socks—atop the dining room table. It’s always late where he is, 2 am, 3 am, the dark hours. In 2019 the Bitcoin Guy was eating soylent, but body positivity impacts him too, and now he’s back on San Francisco burritos. He buys the burrito during the day when he has to move his car, but waits to eat it until he’s back at his computer during the dark hours. He’s the only one who can understand the market, and oh, he’ll mansplain bitcoin valuation, and mining and the Bitcoin Network to you in such a condescending way you’ll never want to ask again. Like the boogeyman, he haunts our dreams, but what if he wasn’t real?

A Pew study from April 2023 finds that while Bitcoin Guy is most likely young and a guy, 41% of men 18- to 29-years-old say they have engaged with the digital currency, as opposed to just 16% of women. But he doesn’t totally fit the image of some white guy in some old socks watching the stocks. The same Pew study says that overall, 21% of users are actually Black, 21% are Latino, 24% are Asian, while only 18% are white. Perhaps even crazier, Black users are more likely than their white counterparts to say they’ve been active in the past year.

Sure, he’s a guy, but he’s not a white guy. Already we’re busting up some stereotypes: you don’t have to be white, to be in the bitcoin club. Let’s keep going, because if we can poke holes in this behemoth bitcoin bro, chomping late night al pastor from his perch in San Francisco’s toniest neighborhood, then the stereotypes begin to lose power. And with the revelation that Bitcoin Guy isn’t real, one thing comes into stark relief: the culture of bitcoin is ours to define. The Bitcoin Guy? He’s ours to create.

In order to do that, we have to understand why we think of this “Bitcoin Guy,” in the first place. Why is it this stereotype that’s got a foothold in our collective consciousness? Why is this guy our bitcoin fantasy?

It starts with the people who seem incredibly hyped about it. Elon Musk’s Tesla bought up $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin a couple of years ago. Mark Zuckerberg tried, and failed, to make his own cryptocurrency. Those guys don’t wear a Google Glass and walk around in frayed cargo shorts (in public), but they sure do invoke the legions of tech bros who do.

A 2019 Medium article discusses the phenomenon of bro culture inside of tech and argues that the culture is derived from “brogrammers.” Fewer than 1 in 5 graduates of computer science are women, according to Girls Who Code. A 2018 book called Brotopia excoriated Silicon Valley’s predominantly white, male sexist culture drawing from reports history and wretched diversity reports.

That blockbuster book, along with the emergence of #MeToo, spurred an industry-wide identity reckoning. But it didn’t last long.

Some incremental changes were made. Money was donated by men, organizations for seed funding for women were created. But, according to The New York Times, “Women still get just 2 percent of venture capital funding and Black founders get 1 percent, where the largest tech companies have made negligible progress on diversifying their staff, and where harassment and discrimination remain common.”

All of these ingredients make up a recipe for the grossest, most toxic culture you can imagine. One that doesn’t give priority to the many other perspectives that exist, outside of the soylent-swigging dude who leaves his holey socks on during sex. And not only does it erase a legion of bitcoin users, the image actively turns people off. The Bitcoin Guy isn’t just some annoying specter—he’s become a gate-keeper, a deterrent, an obstacle to people who want to engage. In order to create a bitcoin community that’s inclusive, widespread and welcoming to anybody who might want to invest, it’s time to think of another mascot.

So, the rebrand. We know that the power brokers inside of bitcoin’s larger universe might be predominantly white and men, but the users, or “miners,” tell a different story. And if these users are already bucking a system with tech bros at the top, then perhaps an even more diverse group might find the currency, if a tiny bit of effort was made.

It’s tricky. Bitcoin is decentralized, there is no comms department. Actually, there’s no department for anything, because there’s no company. There are no employees. It’s not up to bitcoin to shape its image, but rather, us. It’s up to the people who have already found it, and industries outside of tech, who have interests in bitcoin’s future, to evolve past the Bitcoin Guy. For all of us. For the whole of the world. We need to think about a new mascot, one that’s compelling enough to rewrite the narrative of who bitcoin is actually for. (Everyone.)

My humble suggestions:

Let’s tap the fashion industry first—since they know about a rebrand, they do it every season. Jay Z x Gucci x Bitcoin. For one night and one night only, SSense lets you purchase clothes through bitcoin at computers set up at the Soho House pool. Move on to some men of the people. Think Bernie x Bitcoin T-shirt mashups. Have the squad’s chicest, Ilhan Omar and AOC, go stump for bitcoin’s makeover to their constituencies. The look of bitcoin, after all, is “the people.”

Let’s encourage the TikTok girlies to take it on: Bitcoin Girl Summer, Bitcoin Fly Girls. Bitcoin against rats.

Tell bitcoin fans Julia Fox and Emrata to have an honest, raw conversation about the contents of their digital wallets. What else is a podcast for?

The truth is that we don’t need one replacement for Bitcoin Guy, we need many. We want to hear from all the bitcoin us- ers (well except one, you’ve had your turn, sit down). If you’re reading this and you don’t have old New Balances and a Google sweatshirt on, I’m talking to you. Join bitcoin, or come out of the closet as a bitcoiner. Save the world, be a spokesperson.