Those who have worked directly with eGirl were generally supportive. Riccardo Spagni aka Fluffypony, of the eGirl portfolio project Yat, said he was a fan of the collective. As did Simon Harman, the founder of an early stage startup called Chainflip in which eGirl bought a minor stake earlier this year, trading tokens for the stablecoin USDC instead of equity for dollars. “In terms of the anon aspect of it, eGirl has people behind them like any other company,” said Harman. “I happen to know one of the prominent members personally. Being anon is more about social contracts rather than actual anonymity.” 

Still, there is some inevitable wariness on the part of the so-called legacy business world, which eGirl’s partners have expressed an eagerness to reassure. “eGirl acts like most other crypto firms, they can get away with otherwise outlandish branding and communication because everyone in the space has a joint understanding of the culture,” Harman said. “I don't think 90 percent of crypto firms of all kinds would last a week in traditional markets.” Adamo Dagradi of Milkman, a European logistics startup, said he’d be “nervous to work for someone who hasn’t got a face.” 

But then, you might ask, why would eGirl want to invest in traditional companies anyway? You could argue their anonymity is just the elaboration of a longstanding tradition within crypto—the most famous  cryptocurrency of them all, lest we forget, was invented by an anon….