In Palo Alto, California, when a cryptocurrency startup that had made a commitment to change the fruit and veg industry was shut down last month, it left behind a word that many women across the world would have an issue with. That word was “Penis”.
In recent news, when a cryptocurrency company called DateCoin tried to encourage a host of investors for its ICO (Initial Coin Offering), it posted an ad on Facebook that features a woman in a swimsuit with text over her body that read, “Touch my I.C.O.”.
And after the North American Bitcoin Conference in January that had 84 male speakers during the entire event, only 3 were women. I think you see a pattern here. To make matters worse, the conference was held at a Miami strip club.
Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, which is the digital ledger that is the underlying technology for all cryptocurrencies, were intended to be forces for creating a democracy, buoyed by a utopian exuberance. However there appears to be a divide between genders when it comes to cryptocurrencies, and women taking part. Some even say that the culture as a whole is getting worse, with the male-dominated culture buoyed by a new fleet of wealthy crypto speculators known as “blockchain bros”.
The world of cryptocurrencies is already being threatened, and looking more like the technology sector as time progresses. Women are considered to be a minority, with some estimates claiming that women in total only account for 4 to 6 percent of blockchain investors. This imbalance actually matters because the early days of an industry are when fortunes are most likely to be made - and the big winners choose whom to invest in and decide what gets built next.
Thankfully, there are some women who are entrepreneurs and investors are starting to sound the alarms bells and make a stand.
“Women, consider crypto,” Alexia Bonatsos, who is a venture capitalist, wrote on Twitter. “Otherwise men are going to get all the wealth, again.”
Some leaders in the cryptocurrency arena are now organising special events, clubs and conferences to help captivate the attention of more women to the sector. Ms Bonatsos spoke at one of these events this month in San Francisco. Jalak Jobanputra, the founder of the startup investment firm Future Perfect Ventures, and other blockchain developers grouped together in New York this month to talk about the issues that have been raised. They announced later on that they would launch a blockchain diversity advocacy group called the Collective Future and create a diversity pledge for crypto companies to sign to show their commitment.
“The early days are what decide the culture of an industry and who gets involved in making the decisions” As stated by Ms. Jobanputra. She cited venture capitalists who funded eBay and Amazon whom they funded next.
Arianna Simpson, who was an early cryptocurrency investor, said the surge of interest in virtual currencies from male novices should remind women that it did not take expertise or a Ph.D. to thrive in the ecosystem.
“Women always question if they’re qualified,” she said. “But look at these clowns around us”.
The overall response to some of the events has been really encouraging, some of the women who attended the event said. Brit Morin, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, recently held a blockchain gathering for women that sold out in an hour. She ended up having to take drastic measures, and in doing so had to move the event to a bigger venue, where all 500 seats sold out yet again. Seeing the response she got, she decided to set up a livestream for that event; that evening, where 16,000 viewers ended up joining to watch.
“We have an opportunity to rebuild the financial systems,” said Ms. Morin. “Women want to be part of that.”
The resistance to this movement follows expanding outrage at the lack of diversity in the cryptocurrency space, punctuated by the sexist incidents that involved the Facebook ad ran by DateCoin, and Prodeum, which is the blockchain-for-fruit-startup.
The growing gender imbalances was also on display at last month’s North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami, which was organized by Moe Levin who is a well established investor. Mr. Levin originally slated 86 men and only 1 woman as speakers. After many complaints, he had actually replaced 2 of the men with women in an attempt to reach a standard that he thought should be enough. That turned out to be 84 men and only 3 women. Not really much of a standard.
“It just coincidentally happened that there were more men than women speakers,” Mr. Levin said. “It’s not intentional not to include them. It’s just we don’t have time to include them”.
When other people within the cryptocurrency space had realized the conference’s after party would be held at a strip club, those people had attempted to encourage Mr. Levin to switch locations. He gave a statement which said that the strip club was the most convenient and safest venue he could find.
“Downtown Miami doesn’t have a whole lot of event spaces,” Mr. Levin said. “And we needed a lot of security”.
However, the same conference, only a year before had a kickoff party that featured a number of underwear-clad models that were painted gold and covered in Bitcoin logos.
“Moe does something just as sexist every year,” said Rose Chan, who founded the World Bank’s blockchain working group and now happens to run her own cryptocurrency project. “He switches it up, which actually means that he thinks about it.”
Some female investors had openly stated that they had made the decision to boycott the conference in the future. Mr. Levin said this reaction had surprised him. “There’s so many people who had a great time,”
At some women-in-crypto events, you can tell that frustration is turning into anger and sadness. On a recent night, about 50 young women interested in cryptocurrencies gathered at the Women’s Club of Palo Alto. Some were engineering students at the nearby Stanford University.
Over a few glasses of win, they shared their many stories - some had even been mistaken for models that had been hired, others propositioned during job interviews, and many men didn’t believe that these women could possibly be engineers at all.
“Now there’s a lot of money, and the men think, ‘Oh I’m a whale now,” she said. “They’re a little more full of themselves.”
Karen Hsu of BlockCypher’s head of growth, has said that she thought some of the gender issues had been overstated. She made this claim at a recent event and had been asked if she was a speaker, which was validating.
“It was nice because he didn’t think I was a booth babe,” Ms Hsu stated, referring to the hired model who mainly stand near to booths of startups as a way to draw in the crowd of the people who attend.
Other women had spoken about how the blockchain culture was slowly beginning to wear them down. Jay Graber, a developer at Zcash, which is a new cryptocurrency aimed at increasing the level of privacy, was wearing small green earrings she made out of RAM sticks. She said she had become interested in blockchain technology after joining the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011, and she saw how the technology could remove power from big banks. Now it seems she isn’t as sure as she once was.
“I never felt insecure before I got into this space,” Ms Graber ssaid. “But I just realized there is no one else like me. It is a very hard feeling when you don’t see anyone who is like you.” At one point Ms. Graber had intended to leave the industry, and stated. “I have this perpetual sense of being on the outside of that conversation. It’s just a general state of alienation”.