A taking of the cultural pulse of the crypto community from artists to comedians to meet ups and beyond.

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Just after 8:30 pm on a recent Thursday in Los Angeles, Allyson Vastano took the stage at The Pasadena Comedy, the kind of hole in the wall club that’s as integral to the DNA of stand-up comedy as depression, alcoholism and dick jokes.  Tonight’s sets, though, would have a new twist, as Vastano is trying to bring her newfound love of crypto and her passion for comedy together.

Dressed in Nike kicks, brown pants and a sweatshirt that cut off at her midriff, Vastano greeted the audience of about 30 people by saying she “looks like a girl who doesn’t have two dollars to invest, so you guys might be wondering what the fuck is going on?” Like a lot of comics, she started investing during quarantine “and literally having zero to do,” she said. Her first exposure to crypto came from attending a Cardano summit and vibing off the large crypto community in LA.

“Comics, you’re not going to know what I’m talking about. But. This. Isn’t. For. You,” she said to laughs. The group Vastano created is called Shiba Mob, a nod to the Shiba Inu dog namesake of a cryptocurrency created in August 2020.

I learned of the show through Eventrbite, where the details helpfully mentioned “you do not need to be a student to attend.” The venue had painted black walls and was maybe twenty feet by forty feet; next door Dream Cuts had closed for the night. The Pasadena Comedy sits on a rather charmless block synonymous with LA urban sprawl and reminded me of the former location of The Museum of Jurassic Technology, brilliantly chronicled in Lawrence Weschler’s Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder.

Vastano’s goal is to pair lesser-known artists who are making non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, with better-known headline comics to give artists exposure. For future shows, an NFT sale could allow for VIP access or to buy limited merchandise, Vastano told me after the show. Call the Pasadena Comedy a dry run, if you will, as there was no NFT on offer yet and the standups all took brief shots at crypto comedy.

“Welcome to the NFT show,” Lincoln Anderson said to start her set. “I don’t know what an NFT is and I’m pretty sure I’m too gorgeous to bother learning.” She wore black and white checkered pants and had long sparkly fake fingernails. “What I do know in my life is, I have very small boobs, so to me NFT stands for non-fuckable tits.”

Killian McAssey took the stage in black Vans and a hoodie. “Comedians and crypto people have a lot in common,” he said. “Every day we live in fear of the IRS.”

Slight with reddish short hair, McAssey speaks with a Boston accent. “I hate wiping my ass, every time I do it’s a fucking nightmare,” he said. “Every time I wipe it’s just shit and hair and blood. It looks like I hit a deer with my asshole. And I’ll be selling that as an NFT if you want to get in on the ground floor.”

Vastano hopes to bring the next shows to the West Side of LA. After going down the rabbit hole for crypto she wants to spread the word among the comedy scene. “I became one of those annoying people who was talking about it all the time,” she told me. Concerns about inflation eroding the value of the dollar and anxiety spurred by the covid quarantine and the 2008 financial crisis have been alleviated somewhat by crypto. “It gave me peace,” she said.

She’s hoping to spread that to her fellow comics. “So many people are so scared of crypto because of the image it has right now. It’s so gamble-y, it’s so bro-y,” she said. She encourages her friends to dig in and do research.

“There’s a project for everyone,” she said.