Andrew Tate Says He Can’t Stand Crypto Culture—Even as He Profits From It

By Ryan Ozawa

Former kickboxer—and accused rapist and human trafficker—Andrew Tate said he wants to “fix” crypto, describing his plan as a way for “people to make money from the things they should make money from.”

Tate, who was cleared to leave Romania while awaiting trial on criminal charges, joined crypto influencer and Rug Radio creator Michael "ThreadGuy" Jerome for a sprawling, three-hour conversation on topics ranging from masculinity to COVID-19 vaccines to hedonism.

In addition to a separate British arrest warrant for charges of rape and sexual assault, Tate is now accused of being a serial tax evader during his years in the U.K. Tate was careful to avoid discussing his legal woes in the interview and—with some reluctance—explained his views on crypto.

“My intention was to sit here and talk about everything besides crypto,” he told Jerome.

“My problem with crypto as a whole was not that it made people rich. I've been in crypto for a very long time,” Tate said. “I actually love crypto as an asset and I love crypto as a utility.

“If I spend large sums of money, I love doing it in crypto. It's much easier than the bank—especially in my current situation,” he added.

Instead, Tate said it's the so-called degen culture that surrounds crypto that is “infantile, asinine.”

“The crypto culture before I jumped into a month ago was a mess,” he said.

Tate lambasted the crypto community for focusing only on quick profits.

“I didn't like the crypto culture as a whole because the culture was based on getting in early, which I guess you could argue is a skill, but to a degree, is luck,” he said. “In the real world, if you want to get rich, it's nearly impossible to get rich without learning lessons along the way.”

As for the recent rash of celebrity meme coins, Tate said he's different.

“I would argue I'm one of the only influencers if not the only one,” he declared. “Attention isn't influence, and the crypto coins of celebrities have recently proved that for sure—they have attention, but they can't convert it into influence.”

Tate said he has a plan to bring legitimacy and meaningful gains to the industry.

“Once I decided I was going to fix it. I decided I had to come up with an idea that allowed people to make money from the things they should make money from, which is hard work, which is dedication,” he said. “But before I could do anything in the crypto space, I had to prove I was the king of the crypto space.”

Less than a month ago, Tate began promoting a Solana meme coin called $DADDY. Its value quickly soared, despite insider trading allegations from blockchain watchers, and quickly surpassed the value of celebrity Iggy Azalea's $MOTHER token.

“I'm not selfless. I'm not doing this because I'm such a nice fucking guy—I want to be right. I want to prove I can do it,” he said. “I could tweet something right now and double it. I could do whatever I want. I have magic powers.”

After teasing earlier that he would launch a “global tour” to tout $DADDY and his crypto vision, Tate said he would soon explain the plan in greater detail.

“I'm going to release a very detailed video in the coming days explaining exactly how it's going to work,” he said.

As for Bitcoin, Tate said its advocates, or “maxis,” could be doing much more than talking about it, especially when “everyone wants to Bitcoin at a million dollars, and it isn't happening. It's going down.”

“They have this canned excitement, and they're just taking that potential energy and—instead of putting it into something positive, like going to the gym or starting another business so they can make fiat currency to buy as much Bitcoin as possible—they take that energy and just direct that to anyone who will listen to them about Bitcoin.”

Throughout the conversation, Tate emphasized the value of harnessing profits to build successful businesses that hire people and evolve, in contrast to the crypto industry.

“If you make a couple million dollars off a crypto coin, you've helped nobody, you've helped no one, you've fed no one, you've done nothing good for fucking anyone—you just robbed a bunch of people of exit liquidity, that is it,” he said.

Edited by Sebastian Sinclair.

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