Joe McCann received into crypto buying and selling and, inside two years, he appeared to have it made. McCann’s fund Uneven raised cash in 2022 from the likes of Marc Andreessen and Circle and, in the course of the crypto increase interval that marked Donald Trump’s return to the White Home, the fund almost doubled in worth. However then issues unraveled.
By July of 2025, Uneven’s liquid fund had misplaced vital worth, main McCann to funnel buyers into a brand new enterprise that did not pan out. Then, early this month, reviews emerged that McCann’s fiancée, the influencer Ashly Robinson, had died whereas on trip with McCann at a luxurious resort in Tanzania. Robinson’s loss of life was initially attributed to suicide, however the police have reportedly seized McCann’s passport and are questioning him as a part of an ongoing investigation.
McCann and a younger influencer
Robinson, who goes by Ashlee Jenae on-line, took up with McCann in November 2024, considered one of her Instagram posts suggests. At the moment, McCann’s crypto agency was on the zenith of its success. McCann, who didn’t return a number of textual content messages in search of remark, had beforehand been married in 2018 to Shea Jackson, a lady 10 years his junior who labored in advertising and marketing. The pair ultimately cut up, and two founders who took enterprise investments from Uneven’s enterprise fund instructed Fortune that a few of McCann’s stake had been transferred to Jackson. Jackson didn’t return a request for remark. McCann additionally has a daughter, in line with his X posts.
McCann started bringing Robinson, who was 15 years his junior, to crypto occasions, and she or he started posting pictures of him on her social media accounts. Robinson’s on-line profiles present her and McCann jetsetting amongst unique places as Robinson embraced the “soft life,” a self-care targeted social media development. “Chapter 31 and I’m exactly where i need to be,” learn her last Instagram publish, which confirmed her feeding a giraffe in Tanzania. Two days earlier, the 30-year-old had posted a video of McCann, 45, proposing to her as a lion stalked ahead within the foreground.
In accordance with a report from native police, the pair checked into the posh Zuri Zanzibar resort on April 6 however, following a disagreement, resort workers reportedly moved McCann to a room separate from Robinson’s. On April 8, Robinson was discovered unconscious in her room by a room service attendant and rushed to the hospital. Tanzanian police attributed her loss of life to suicide.
McCann, who has not been formally accused of wrongdoing, had his passport withheld by native authorities and is being questioned by police, in line with the police report. Robinson’s household known as her loss of life suspicious in an announcement.
A crack-up at McCann’s crypto agency
Joe McCann made a profession out of doing issues his method.
Born in 1980, McCann attended Portland State College, the place he studied philosophy, significantly having fun with Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. He spent the primary decade-plus of his profession in tech and finance, ultimately changing into CEO of a software program firm that was acquired in 2019. After a stint at Microsoft, McCann grew to become a CEO as soon as once more after launching a crypto fund—telling himself he would do issues “a little bit different this time,” in line with a 2024 podcast interview.
McCann appreciated to painting Uneven, which had each a enterprise and a liquid arm, as financially accountable however culturally hip. “I was a DJ and threw raves and had a couple record labels and my brother and I had a clothing line together … I was the CTO at one of the top ad agencies in New York City” earlier than founding Uneven, McCann mentioned on the podcast, calling his publicity to the “creative side of humanity” an edge in crypto investing.
In interviews, McCann boasted of notching enormous returns on a flash-in-the-pan memecoin known as BONK. He boosted his cultural cred by hanging out with the rapper Iggy Azalea and cheerleading that artist’s ill-fated crypto undertaking. He briefly marketed an Uneven-themed merch line, with an costly wanting promotional video besides.
For some time, all of this translated to wholesome returns. In 2024, the worth of Uneven’s liquid guide swelled from roughly $195 million to $395 million, an individual conversant in the agency’s funds instructed Fortune. Uneven’s numbers nonetheless lagged Bitcoin’s 121% return that yr, nevertheless.
Regardless of the outsize returns, there was discontent inside Uneven. Founding member and key dealer Chris Cecere stop the agency regardless of Uneven’s blowout returns in 2024, in line with an individual who spoke with Cecere. Cecere didn’t return a request for remark.
As Uneven started to wrestle in 2025, McCann latched onto a crypto fad generally known as digital asset treasury corporations, popularized by Michael Saylor’s Technique, previously Microstrategy. In a July notice, he knowledgeable buyers that “shifting market dynamics” meant Uneven would drop its energetic buying and selling technique and plow its remaining assets into constructing a treasury of the cryptocurrency Solana.
Buyers have been invited to an info session for the corporate on July 22 however, the identical day, an sad restricted companion posted the agency’s almost 80% year-to-date loss on X. Quickly after, the Solana scheme was scrapped. One former Uneven investor instructed Fortune that because the liquid fund wound down, the return they acquired from the fund was lower than the principal that they had invested. At present, Uneven’s web site lists two enterprise funds and a particular objective automobile for Circle fairness. The “Team” web page on Uneven’s web site has been taken down, and an Uneven basic companion didn’t return a request for remark.
Whilst Uneven floundered, McCann remained energetic within the crypto world, typically posting a number of instances a day to his greater than 100,000 X followers. In March of this yr, the crypto agency MG Stover acquired Uneven Info, a crypto analytics agency based by McCann.
However following his catastrophic journey to Tanzania, McCann’s issues now run a lot deeper than his crypto fortunes. The household of McCann’s late fiancée is demanding solutions surrounding her loss of life, and McCann is at present caught in Tanzania.
In a podcast look proper in the midst of Joe McCann’s banner 2024, the Uneven chief made the case for one key danger all merchants have to handle: the danger of dropping all the things.
“Seeking asymmetry—like, asymmetric upside, limited to no downside—should be coupled with avoiding the risk of ruin,” McCann mentioned.
