Women in Cryptocurrency: The Trailblazers and Problems that Remain

We all know the glass ceiling is a very real thing, and even if not for every industry, the fear of failure based on gender bias is another burden to carry in itself. It’s not that women aren’t smart enough to get into top engineering, programming, or financial careers, it’s the lack of respect they receive very often.

Times are changing, women are finally encouraged to go post-grad, but there are still limits to the recognition they get. This lack of respect is very well represented in the world of finances, with stigmas that women just like to shop and live off their rich husbands. But again times are changing, and many women now like to see themselves as the rich husbands their parents once wanted them to marry.

It wasn’t even that long ago that the US credit system wouldn’t give women access to credit cards before it was corrected in 1974. The financial industry may be opening up its doors to powerful women, but cryptocurrency, being more new, is still a very women-lacking industry. 

And again, it is not that women do not understand or have an interest in cryptocurrencies, there are many factors that deter women from cryptocurrencies and the community as a whole. No, it is not the common misconception that women choose more stable investment options vs men taking riskier investment options. There are plenty of reasons women have stated they are deterred from entering Blockchain, but before we look into that, let us take a look at our list of women in cryptocurrency to watch. 

Linda Xie

Linda is the co-founder of Scalar Capital, a crypto investment firm, helping fund the future of Blockchain. She has been involved in risk management analysis for more than 11 years, and was previously the product manager for leading exchange Coinbase. Linda is now dedicated to sharing knowledge about cryptocurrencies, writing articles, as well as having panel discussions, and has even made it her mission to get more women into cryptocurrency. 

Preethi Kasireddy

Preethi is a knowledgeable engineer, writer, and entrepreneur. She is another Coinbase alumni, acting as a software engineer for this leading exchange. She also has experience as an Ethereum blockchain and smart contract engineer, helping Ethereum based projects succeed. She is now the founder and CEO of TruStory, a social network that rewards users with crypto tokens for identifying accurate information and refuting inaccurate information.

Galia Benartzi

Have you heard of Bancor, the decentralized exchange network? We are sure you have, but did you know that Galia Benartzi is one of the co-founders? Aside from her role in the success of Bancor, Galia has been building software startups since 2005. She founded and helped run companies such as Mytopia and Particle Code, before they were sold. With all her experience, she is now an investor and a regular conference speaker where she shares her knowledge.  

Joyce Kim

Joyce Kim graduated from Harvard and Columbia Law School and began her career as an attorney. She became CEO of Soompi, a K-pop news outlet, as well as co-founded simplehoney, a mobile commerce app. Joyce went on to co-found the popular crypto protocol Stellar, before resigning as Executive Director, she is now an advisor for many upcoming Internet software startups and cryptocurrency projects.

Alena Vranova

Alena is the co-founder and former CEO of SatoshiLabs, the company responsible for creating the leading cryptocurrency hardware wallet, Trezor. Under Alenas’ leadership, the company also created SlushPool and CoinMap.org, one of the first bitcoin mining pools and bitcoin maps. Since SatoshiLabs, Alena has acted as an advisor for lots of exciting start-ups and even became an author. Read The Little Bitcoin Book, written by Alena. 

Problems Within the Crypto Community

From the perspective of a woman, and what we have seen said by women already in the industry, these are some problems that need to be worked on.

Without getting too political, we very much know that women are sexualized by modern-day society. This is not the crypto communities fault as a whole, but there are a few that it rings true to. Smart women talking about what makes them passionate and how they see the future of technology going are often not listened to by males without the prospects of potential relations.

Another factor is men preferring to listen to other men, this can also be seen when men don’t respect a woman saying no but respect when their boyfriends say no. A woman with more knowledge in the field may often be overlooked because this male-dominated field would prefer to hear from someone they relate to, another man in this example. This has led to many women being overlooked, despite how many are influencing the crypto space, and rather seeing recognition given to other men in the industry.

And whenever women are mentioned for their success, it is linked to them being a woman, almost saying you are more interested in the fact that they are women than their actual success. We are not writing this to add to the “Oh wow, women are in crypto” debacle, but rather highlight these incredible women and their work which is greatly contributing to the adoption of Blockchain technology.

We want other women to see these women and see that women are killing this male-dominated game, and we want men to see these women and see all the hard work they have put into helping our community. 

What You Can Do

There are no problems without solutions, as Blockchain has proven over and over again. So if you want to up the number of women in cryptocurrency, you can start by supporting the ones that are already revolutionizing the space. By supporting these women, you contribute to the success of being seen by other women who may be interested in cryptocurrency but not know where to start. So here is what you can do.

Let women speak

By giving women a platform to speak, or even just a few minutes, you validate that they are heard and respected. This ounce of respect goes a mile, allowing women to see that they have a safe place to speak will give them more confidence to do so, and in so, get them to encourage other women too. 

Follow women leading the space

Social Media has become a growing way of spreading information, so sharing women in crypto you find inspiring helps. Even just following them on Linkedin, YouTube, or Instagram shows they have people who care. Share an article, like their content, and give them motivation to keep going.

Talk about them

As you can see from this article, there are so many powerful women in cryptocurrency, so when the subject arises, mention some of your favorite crypto women and influencers. Not only does this shed a light on the accessibility of crypto to other women, but it allows more men to learn about women in crypto.

Support their projects or work

Some are developers, some are founders, some are writers. If there is a woman revolutionizing a space within cryptocurrency, or even crypto itself, support their hard work. You can follow them on GitHub, buy their tokens, try their apps, or give them and their work a shout-out.