IWD2021 | Challenging the ‘Blockchain Boys Club’

When conversations turn to cryptocurrency, as they so often do in a world filled with Elon Musk’s DOGE Tweets, or Gene Simmons announcing a $300k investment in Cardano, it doesn’t take long for the conversation to shift towards women in crypto and the issues of diversity in the industry.

According to Coin Dance, of those engaged in the Bitcoin community, only 14.23% are women. Similarly, Swyftx’s social media sees an average engagement rate of 25% from women, compared to a 74% engagement rate from men.Whether this statistic is surprising to you or not, it is clear that women are interested in cryptocurrency, but it would seem they are faced with a number of barriers to entering this new sector of finance. 

Despite this lower engagement percentage, women are in fact interested in investing; according to Grayscale’s Bitcoin Female investor Study from Dec 2019, 43% of interested investors are women and one of the major roadblocks to them investing in crypto is a lack of education on the subject. 

Long-standing norms of finance being a “boys club”, shape future conversations, and as men will more likely raise the subject matter of investing in cryptocurrency with other men, this perpetuates an unequal distribution of knowledge and relationship building within the industry. If resources deter them, embedded social norms expand the divide between genders which leads to less leadership positions in the space for women and other non-male genders. 

But it does not stop there; while the gender pay gap issue is complex and has reduced, the national gender pay gap, calculated by WGEA using data from the ABS, is currently at 13.4%.If only the answer was as simple as paying men and women the same in like-for-like roles, but unfortunately, it is not. The deeper issue contributing to the gender pay gap stems from occupational segregation; with an underrepresentation of women in Senior, Management and Executive Positions.

However, it is not all bare, the Cryptocurrency industry in Australia does currently have its share of women at the helm of some phenomenal projects in the space. Some women accelerating our country’s movement with Blockchain technology and adoption are:

• Chloe White @ChloeWhiteAus, the current Australian National Blockchain Roadmap Lead.
• Katrina Donaghy @katrina_donaghy, CEO of CIVIC Ledger who helps enable governments to be more efficient, accessible and transparent with blockchain technology.
• Australia’s very own Dr. Jemma Green @msjemmagreen who is the Executive Chairman and Co-founder of Power Ledger which utilised blockchain to enable clean low cost and resilient electricity markets. Swyftx also offer the token of Power Ledger (POWR).
• Kathleen Breitman @breitwomen is the cofounder of TEZOS (XTZ) and has been involved in multiple strategic Blockchain projects although not Australian.

Despite the male dominance within the sector, there are a growing number of women who are working to make the industry more inclusive. 

Here at Swyftx, we want to help open up the Cryptosphere, both through our internal recruitment processes with gender-neutral language & online community inclusivity and with our new user outreach advertising and programs.

Our focus for diversity within Swyftx has resulted in our most recent leadership position of Brooke White our Head of Brand and Design.

Additionally, our female representation has increased to 15%+ and we will continue to improve this throughout 2021 with our rapid growth recruitment plan, understanding we have a long way to go to achieve a diverse and inclusive workplace.

It is undebatable that women are largely underrepresented within Fintech and Blockchain alongside general Crypto discussions, and today we’d like to continue turning this around, by making crypto a conversation among women and non-male genders within Australia by asking you to help start these conversations and encouraging others to join these discussions!

There is a huge movement today in the world of financial freedom and personal finance. This, alongside cryptocurrency promising to liberate people from governments and archaic financial systems, allowing borderless fast transactions and creating a fair system for all, there is a huge opportunity to ensure all genders are represented equally and put the right foot forward for this emerging and exponentially growing sector. 

As a company, we’re aiming to make the question “are there many women in crypto” obsolete and provide equal opportunities and leadership opportunities to all genders in this space.

In 2021 we are looking for new strategies to empower women to continue to invest, learn and participate in the cryptocurrency industry and investing.

#ChooseToChallenge #IWD2021