Cryptocurrency and blockchain—an industry at the intersection of finance and technology—has seen relatively few women get involved, despite growing interest in recent years. Unfortunately, even when women are involved, they can often face more challenges than their male colleagues. However, there are promising opportunities, and a lot of potential. Click through to read about women forming groups around bitcoin and cryptocurrency; the potential for blockchain technology to help solve problems and provide financial opportunities for women; and how, despite the low numbers of women currently in blockchain and crypto, the field could be “a way to circumvent that old boy’s club” of raising capital.
The future (of cryptocurrency) is female.
After Bitcoin surpassed $10,000 in value last week, much of the discourse revolved around whether there was a bubble around the most famous form of cryptocurrency. And little wonder: someone who held one bitcoin on December 31, 2016 would have seen their asset’s value climb nearly 11 times as of late Friday.
The majority of the (admittedly volatile) gains realized by bitcoin and crypto cousins like Ethereum this year however, have gone straight into the pockets of men. Estimates of the number of women investors and users of cryptocurrency vary, but most peg female participation at between 1% to 5%. “It’s tied to the larger issue of there being few women in tech and finance generally. Given that cryptocurrency sits at the intersection, this is exacerbated,” Angela Walch, a law professor and Research Fellow at the Centre for Blockchain Technologies at University College London, tells Moneyish.
Cryptocurrency is a digital alternative medium of exchange created, secured and transmitted via blockchain technology, which links and records transactions via cryptography. It is created, or “mined,” by computers. Bitcoin, its most famous iteration, has decidedly masculine roots. It was created by anonymously using a male Japanese moniker and its earliest cheerleaders were male P.C. gamers and libertarian members of the cyberpunk communities who liked that it isn’t controlled by a governmental central bank.
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