Presence of Women in the Digital Asset Sphere is Growing

The crypto sphere and blockchain technologies WERE believed to be predominantly male spaces.

Published in

CyberVein

9 min readMay 22, 2020

Presence of Women in the Digital Asset Sphere is Growing

Nonetheless, CoinMarketCap recently published a study that challenged this idea. The analysis shows that women’s participation in the sector rose over 40% during the first few months of the year.

Bitcoin is Appealing to Female Investors

A report released by Grayscale suggested that 43% of people keen on investing in Bitcoin are women. This number constitutes a growth of more than 10% from the previous year, and it is still increasing.

As the worldwide economic environment got worse, cryptocurrencies became a more popular investment. Women are generally much gloomier than their male counterparts about the finances, so it is expected that even more women will want to invest in cryptocurrencies as a safe haven asset. The cryptocurrency industry has a lot to offer to potential investors. Women can get better access to capital through public offerings of tokenized digital securities, trading, and investing, among other things.

Exchanges have observed a growing demand for cryptocurrencies. For instance, two months ago, the crypto exchange Coinbase noticed that an increasing number of deposits from American citizens in the amount of $1,200 — the exact amount of the economic stimulus payment provided by the national government.

Meanwhile, the price of bitcoin has doubled over the last few months. This growth, combined with the third halving, has incited a rush of excitement in the market. Women have no less understanding of what is going on than men do. As reported by Grayscale, nearly half of female investors expect that Bitcoin’s finite supply will drive the price higher. This finding almost coincides with the percentage of men who express the same idea.

Crypto Is Not Only for Men

The rise in the price of bitcoin and the advantages of cryptocurrencies as a whole have increased the number of women on crypto trading platforms. For instance, Bithumb Global announced that the exchange saw the number of women participating grow by almost a third this year. According to its VP, Vincent Poon, women are investing in bitcoin to hedge and diversify the assets. However, signing up for the platform does not always mean trading. Many women are just studying this new investment opportunity, which seems especially alluring during the global crisis.

Since the start of the year, women’s participation in major cryptocurrency exchanges has risen somewhere in the range of 22% to 160%. CoinCorner reported that the number of new female users increased by 47% during the first quarter of 2020. In contrast, the number of new accounts from women grew at an average of 12% in previous years. The total amount of female participation in the exchange is currently 14.7%.

The same trend has occurred on a larger scale on OKCoin. The exchange saw an 80% growth in female traffic in the first quarter, with half of them being new users; 40% of them were in the age range of 25 to 34. The real leader here is Bitfinex. The number of women using the exchange has grown by 162% from the beginning of the year, which is the all-time high. According to senior advertising supervisor Joe Morgan, this momentum indicates a growing embrace of cryptocurrencies among women.

Digital Assets Can Be Used in Everyday Life

Broader adoption and widespread use of digital assets and the blockchain will facilitate the involvement of women in the market, especially the number of women who use related services daily. The collaborative banking platform 2gether uncovered that 23% of people who use their application are women ages 26 to 45. The data demonstrates that women tend to manage their crypto coins in the same way they spend fiat cash.

The crypto payment platform Terra revealed that 74% of its clients are women ages 35 to 45 who use cryptocurrencies to buy basic consumer goods. There is growing interest in digital assets not only from women with technical expertise and understanding but also from those of various backgrounds and professions.

Regional Differences

The extent of women’s engagement in the crypto market can be determined by their place of residence. For example, in the United States and Europe, the interest in digital assets is strong, and the number of female crypto users has grown by half this year. Meanwhile, other nations have managed to double the number of women investing in cryptocurrencies and using digital assets. In Europe, Greece is the leader.

The country has experienced a surge of 163.67%. This scene was created under the influence of several economic factors. The Greek economy is recovering after an economic downturn, with the labor market flourishing and people looking for new investment opportunities. Additionally, understanding blockchain technology and crypto assets is a marketable skill, which encourages more young women to join the industry.

Regarding women in the crypto industry, Greece is followed by Romania, Portugal, Ukraine, and the Czech Republic. The surge can be attributed to either an increasing number of IT companies or a high unemployment rate and other national economic challenges. Ukraine’s soaring female participation in the digital asset industry can be credited to the flourishing IT industry and a growing number of women with expertise in technology. According to recent data, the presence of women in Ukrainian IT companies has increased by 62% over the last two years. The global pandemic was among the factors that have influenced female participation in the market, as well.

Among the Asian countries, Indonesia is in the lead, with almost 90% more women in the crypto industry. Also, South Korea is striving to fully regulate the crypto market and considering a suitable scheme for cryptocurrency taxation, so women in the country are increasingly turning to digital assets to pay for their everyday necessities. By contrast, fewer women are joining the crypto space in China. Experts call this situation a direct consequence of the global COVID-19 pandemic. For now, China is getting back to normal life, which may soon bring new stats regarding women in crypto and blockchain.

Argentina has achieved the greatest progress in involving female investors in the crypto sphere in Latin America. The number of women holding digital assets there has increased by 98%. The country has a number of highly successful startups and offers a favorable environment for entrepreneurs, many of whom are women over the age of 60. Thus, it is natural that more and more women are deciding to invest in crypto technologies. In both Colombia and Venezuela, the crypto market has seen a growth of more than 80% in female investors.

Empowerment and Equality of Women in the Crypto Sphere

When we talk about women in the crypto sphere, it is not just about investing and trading. Many women are dealing with digital assets in their professional lives in positions predominantly occupied by men, such as analysts, company managers, and software engineers. Statistical data indicates that crypto-related enterprises established by women are no less successful than those founded by men. For example, the digital asset service provider Huobi has Ciara Sun as its vice president, 50% of the top trading platform Binance’s employees are women among, and the liquidity network Bankor was co-founded by Galia Benartzi.

One of the co-founders of CyberVein, a company that offers new blockchain design (DAG technology) to effectively manage big databases, is a woman named Lynn Lee. Lynn is an award-winning marketer with experience as a marketing strategist. She is also an early blockchain-community contributor and Golden Financial columnist with over 20 blockchain articles published. With rich experience as a Blockchain Club founder and having her own blockchain network in five countries (the USA, the UK, Australia, Canada, and China), Lynn has brought many strategic partnerships to CyberVein and favored the company’s development and growth.

Susan Huang is another CyberVein chief. She is the chief operating officer and has 11 years of experience in public relations, branding, and marketing. Her experience includes working as a CMO at a state-owned company, as well as at a well-known 4A advertising company. Susan believes that blockchain technology is a way to upgrade internet technology, making it more complete while also being a good solution to the problems of other industries, such as AI, medical industry, and IoT:

“Blockchain is an industry with great potential, and I want to seize the opportunity. At the same time, the threshold of this industry is high, and needs us to constantly iterate and update information. In addition, women are relatively disadvantaged in this industry. In traditional industries, men are responsible for technology, while women are responsible for clerical work. However, in the blockchain industry, women need to have a lot of professional knowledge, and may become more capable than men,” — Susan Huang, CyberVein COO.

CyberVein’s head of HR, Moon Song, has been part of CyberVein since the early stages of the company’s life. She is very happy to have entered a new industry and acquired a lot of blockchain knowledge, which, as she says, many of her male friends don’t even understand. At CyberVein, she helps to create a good working atmosphere with every colleague, being very energetic, friendly, and motivated.

Chloe Liu, CyberVein’s current head of branding and a former crime-scene investigation department employee, views the blockchain industry as a new area where women’s status can be equal to men’s and gender boundaries are relatively blurred, which is more satisfactory. She hopes that women will truly master the technology skills and do their work professionally. Chloe also says that the market’s current view is biased, and neither men nor women fully understand blockchain technology’s potential, being sure that it’s only about cryptocurrencies.

Akira Huang, a graphic designer, is the newest CyberVein team member. She believes that although she has just entered the blockchain industry, she can learn more and continue to master her skills, facing new challenges as the blockchain industry brings new elements into her portfolio.

Joanna Zhang, or as she prefers to be called, JoJo, is a commercial officer at CyberVein. She believes that the main challenge of the blockchain industry is that many women cannot fight their own doubts about whether they are skilled enough to enter the market and the industry. At the same time, the blockchain industry definitely has more opportunities to offer than any other industry.

“As for now, there are more men in the blockchain industry, but more and more women are joining it, and this diversity will benefit the blockchain industry greatly. The blockchain area is still male dominated. In addition, not everyone who enters the industry knows technology the way it’s required, so there are often some bad cultures. For example, there are some communities where women would undermine their own rights and respect just to get user approvals and transactions. I hope that women in blockchain can understand technology better, become stronger and win the equality and the respect of men,” — Joanna “JoJo” Zhang, CyberVein commercial officer.

Such success stories will bring even more women into the digital asset industry as both entrepreneurs and opinion shapers.

Women are already showing great interest in the technology and attending blockchain and cryptocurrency conferences. For example, there were 56% more women at the 2019 Paris Blockchain Summit than the previous year, and 22% more participated as speakers. Additionally, more women belonged to the older age group, which shifted the average age of female attendees to 33 years.

All this data suggests that gender inequality in crypto technologies is gradually being eradicated. So far this year, the opportunities for women in crypto have been greater than ever before, and we can expect even more women to enter the market and industry in the upcoming months.