Crypto women mobilize – Daria Solovieva

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A cloud of bro culture surrounds the crypto-trading space, with Twitter gaiters, Reddit threads, and memes wars dictating media coverage and largely reflecting the male-dominated world of new finance.

But women are not watching with folded arms in this changing market. In fact, they are playing an increasingly active role as investors, founders, media entrepreneurs, educators, and even memes enthusiasts.

A recent survey by researchers at the University of Chicago found that the crypto boom is opening up opportunities for more diverse investors, including women and people of color. Over the past year, the number of female crypto traders has increased at several cryptocurrency exchanges and online brokerage firms, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The number of female crypto traders on eToro has doubled in the United States, but still represents 20% of its total users. (Note: I am a very inactive user of eToro, but find it quite useful, especially discussion boards and traders which allow other users to copy their strategies.)

It’s always difficult to generalize about gender behaviors when it comes to money, but there are studies that show that women spend more time researching their investments. As more and more young investors take charge of their financial futures, the percentage of female crypto traders and investors, in particular, is likely to increase.

This may work in favor of women investors in the long term, as the world of cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance remains in the early stages of development.

It’s like the early days of the internet where there were a lot of attempts but a few key platforms that have survived and I could probably guess what will be there in five to 10 years and what won’t, Rahilla Zafar, an advisor at Fourth Revolution Capital, an alternative investment firm focused on blockchain technology, told me.

The mission of new financial platforms and offerings also seems to resonate with female investors, as more financial institutions take female customers more seriously, unveiling products that educate and engage female customers more directly. Fidelity Investments, for example, launched Fidelity Spire App, a free app for financial planning, savings and investing.

We understand that women and men have different needs when it comes to planning for life’s great moments and for the long term, says Lorna Kapusta, Head of Women Investors and Client Engagement at Fidelity Investments. Recent events have certainly exacerbated this situation, as several Fidelity studies have shown this year.

Since entering this new territory, many crypto investors have become educators and launched their own media platforms to teach more investors and customers what DeFi is.

Camila Russo, former Bloomberg reporter and author of The Infinite Machine: How an Army of Crypto-hackers Is Building the Next Internet with Ethereum, launched The Defiant, a media platform that includes a Substack-based newsletter, podcast, and a range of guides on how to get started.

Russo shared with me a list of the key steps to take before descending the crypto rabbit hole. I couldn’t agree with her more, so I’m including her in its entirety here:

The obvious and how you would start to research any topic: Google the key terms and read the main material.

Follow industry newsletters to stay up to date with the latest news, trends and stories.

Listen to crypto podcasts to learn from investors and space founders.

Log on to Twitter. Most of the conversations and announcements take place on Twitter (aka crypto Twitter), so follow all the top crypto accounts and make a habit of scrolling through the site throughout the day.

To follow specific projects, go to their Discord group chat app. DeFi projects have open Discord servers where teams answer questions, make announcements, and their users can interact.

Like any market, decentralized finance has carnival elements with crypto pockets of TikTok merging with the crowds of #witchtok and #manifesting claims.

Rachel Cook, the founder of SEEDS, which offers free training on how to trade crypto, empowers her users to help someone in need. On her TikTok account @TranscendCapitalism, she combines information on different cryptocurrencies like Cardano with reflections on her past lives.

Not all women involved in crypto investing necessarily have the best of intentions in mind. There are already many uplifting accounts like the story of Dr Ruja Ignatova, a Bulgarian crypto Ponzi schemer who was charged with wire fraud, security fraud and money laundering by US authorities in 2019 (BBC produced an excellent podcast on the saga called The Missing Cryptoreine)

Still, there are a growing number of creative women on social media and offline specializing in crypto education or community building in response to growing interest.

Liz Strong, who has a day job as a corporate account manager at fintech marketing startup Gainfully, manages a crypto-themed TikTok account with nearly 59,000 subscribers.

The founders of the Hot Crypto Girls Twitter and Instagram pages had a similar idea, creating an online community to help educate more women about crypto. They launched the accounts in June 2021 and were surprised at how many people contacted them online, in person, or recognized the name despite their modest number of followers on Twitter and Instagram.

It’s a space that many women like, historically, hasn’t been very well represented, says Rajya Atluri, a crypto enthusiast and entrepreneur who works at a separate startup in a non-crypto space and has a TikTok account focused on makeup with more than 45,000 subscribers. What if we could use Twitter memes and humor to get more women interested in crypto?

For many female investors, this is just the beginning and a growing number of crypto enthusiasts are taking the time to learn and become smarter investors.

This ecosystem is about decentralization and equality, and the space-building leaders of this technology aren’t doing it for grabbing cash or getting rich quick, Zafar says.

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