Women artists, coders, entrepreneurs, and investors are increasingly supporting cryptocurrency and NFTs (non-fungible tokens), and calling for other women to join the blockchain revolution and close the gender gap in this rapidly expanding field.
Cryptocurrency use has risen among younger investors and especially in poorer nations, where anyone with a mobile phone may bypass the official banking system, as major institutional investors pushed bitcoin to new highs this year.
According to platform BrokerChooser, India has the most crypto owners in the world, with around 100 million, compared to roughly 27 million in the US and 17 million in Russia.
Meanwhile, according to market tracker DappRadar, NFT sales soared to about $11 billion in the third quarter of 2021, up more than eightfold from the previous quarter.
According to a recent poll by CNBC and Acorn, more than two-thirds of cryptocurrency investors in the United States are men, and around 60 per cent are white, a gender disparity that is higher than in other financial investments such as equities, bonds, and mutual funds.
In India, a crypto exchange reported that only 15 per cent of its members were female.
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"In terms of gender, the crypto sector appears to mimic the IT and banking worlds; there are women, but the area is disproportionately male-dominated," said Angela Walch, a research associate at the University College London's Centre for Blockchain Technologies. "As crypto becomes more popular, it is critical to have varied perspectives in the creation and operation of systems in order to make better judgments," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
According to the United Nations' technology agency, less than half of women use the internet globally, compared to 55 per cent of males, with the disparity widening in poorer nations (ITU). According to the World Economic Forum's annual gender gap study, women also lag behind males when it comes to managing and accessing assets or financial services around the world.
With its decentralised architecture, blockchain technology - which underpins bitcoin and NFTs - has been praised as a road to a fairer, more transparent, more inclusive world. And cryptocurrencies are rapidly moving from the periphery of finance to the mainstream, with investors, businesses, and governments accepting them as an asset, a payment method, and a hedge against instability and hyperinflation.
Meanwhile, NFTs have attracted celebrities, artists, and investors, with a digital collage sold for more than $69 million this year being the most expensive NFT sale to yet - despite the fact that the number of NFT buyers remains limited.
However, while cryptocurrency has attracted a diverse group of people, women account for only around a fifth of all investors in the United States, according to a CNBC poll.
Women NFT artists and collectors use Twitter identities like @crypto chicks, @NFTgirl, and @BTCbombshell to flaunt their allegiance and support one another. Many people also donate to charities that help women and girls. While many renowned female crypto investors and artists are based in the West, nations such as India are seeing an increase in female participation.