Photo illustration by William Joel / The Verge, Image CryptidCoin
Ever since the word “crypto” became shorthand for cryptocurrency, NFTs, and Web3 stuff sold in Super Bowl ads or discussed in dinner table conversations, it has overshadowed another community living outside of the blockchain world.
Cryptozoologists have been using the word “crypto” to talk about their field of expertise: legendary creatures like Sasquatch, the Loch Ness monster, Mothman, Chupacabra, and others. Cryptozoology, the study of hidden or unknown animals, originated in the early 1960s by author Ivan T. Sanderson in his book Abominable Snowmen, Legend Come to Life.
Though other crypto-prefix fields of study like cryptography have also been around for decades, to some cryptozoologists, crypto is not only just disrupting the…