So, you’ve got a receding hairline in 2025. You could visit a dermatologist, sure, or you could try a new crop of websites that will deliver your choice of drugs on demand after a video call with a telehealth physician. There’s Rogaine and products from popular companies like Hims, or if you have an appetite for the experimental, you might find yourself at Anagen.

Anagen works a lot like Hims—some of its physicians have even worked there, according to their LinkedIn profiles and the Hims website—but take a closer look at the drugs on offer and you’ll start to notice the difference. Its Growth Maxi formula, which sells for $49.99 per month, contains Finasteride and Minoxidil; two drugs that are in Hims’ hair regrowth products. But it also contains Liothyronine, a thyroid medication also known as T3 that the Mayo Clinic warns may temporarily cause hair loss if taken orally. Keep reading and you’ll see Latanoprost, a glaucoma drug. Who came up with this stuff anyway?

The group behind the Anagen storefront and products it sells is HairDAO, a “decentralized autonomous organization” founded in 2023 by New York-based cryptocurrency investors Andrew Verbinnen and Andrew Bakst. HairDAO aims to harness the efforts of legions of online biohackers already trying to cure their hair loss with off-label drugs. Verbinnen and Bakst’s major innovation is to inject cash into this scenario: DAO participants are incentivized with crypto tokens they earn by contributing to research, or uploading blood work to an app.