Women in blockchain in Ukraine: what they do and why it matters
The involvement of women in blockchain and cryptocurrency industry has been lively discussed by the international community for the last couple of years. In fact, there are prominent female leaders at the international blockchain scene. At the same time, there is plenty of women working at blockchain-related fields worldwide and Ukraine is not an exception here.
The fact of higher involvement of men in STEM fields takes places globally. Despite the ratio of female specialists in STEM subjects varies from 10 to sometimes over 50% depending on a particular subject and the country, blockchain field is a part of the general trend of less involvement of women in this industry. The reason for this is quite simple — as soon as the blockchain is still in its very early stage of development and, as the technology, blockchain comes from IT, it attracts mostly STEM-related specialists, who most commonly are male.
According to Google Analytics data compiled by Coin.Dance, only 8.78% of engagement related to Bitcoin comes from female users. The same statistics shows Kuna Exchange in Ukraine saying that 90% of their users are male. This can be explained by the above mentioned as well as the fact that crypto is associated with risks, and women are more rarely taking risks in comparison to men. Yet, the acceptance of cryptocurrency and trading is not the only dimension of blockchain field.
Leadership consultant Doug Sundheim (Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/women-in-blockchain-and-crypto-how-to-tackle-gender-inequality)
If we take a look at blockchain solutions development companies, we will find the higher involvement of women there. “Presence of female developers involved in blockchain is not so visible, as girls are still timid to go to the stage and speak, even if they have much stronger skills”, — says Nataly Drik, CEO of the Blockchain Association of Ukraine. “If we look at 22 students of BlockchainHub Academy — 5 of them are girls. Notably, they are among the most successful students who perform impressive achievement”.
The very different situation we can see in blockchain legal, marketing and PR dimensions, where the number of women involved is equal or even exceeding the number of men. The impact of these specialists on the industry growth and mass adoption of the technology is undeniable — without proper legal support, thorough marketing and media practices companies can not scale. Women, who work in these industries, as well as the men, are pretty much entrepreneurs, who provide their services and whose remuneration depends on performance of the work completed. At the same time, the quality of the services offered relates directly to the level of understanding of the industry — its trends, challenges and, consequently, its needs.
Realizing the opportunities that blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies provide in different areas of our lives as well as seeing the growing popularity of these solutions, more and more people strive to learn about blockchain and deepen their expertise in this field to stay competitive and keep up with the upcoming changes in society and economy. For instance, a significant part of visitors at BAU and Blockchain Hub Kyiv educational events about blockchain and cryptocurrencies are women.
Allie Mullen, head of global marketing at the women-focused technology platform Mogul (Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/women-in-blockchain-and-crypto-how-to-tackle-gender-inequality)
So as much as the blockchain industry is organically developing nowadays, as much women will be joining it, in Ukraine in particular. Meanwhile girls are already involved in trading and blockchain development, run marketing and media activities, organize conferences and create networking opportunities in crypto industry.
