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Similarly to other tech-powered communities, bitcoin is still predominantly male. An increasing number of women, however, occupy prominent positions in key bitcoin and blockchain enterprises.

A diversity of female voices

Social media, such as Twitter, has been absolutely crucial in allowing women to advocate for bitcoin, but also to engage critically in discussions concerning the future of the cryptocurrency. Among the most popular bitcoin twitter users is DI$RUPTIV3, better known by her Twitter handle @BitcoinBelle. In March 2016, Bitcoin Belle, also known as Michele Seven, spoke to Daniel Brown, Tim Baker and John Stuart at a You, Me, and BTC podcast entitled Books, Bitches, Banter, & More. Being one of the outspoken critics of another powerful bitcoin female figure, namely Blythe Masters, Bitcoin Belle compared her to the character of the spoiled brat Veruca Salt, the main hero’s antagonist in the Roald Dahl’s novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Michele Seven also presented the basic plot of her crypto-inspired fiction novel which touches upon the issues of cryptocurrency and social engineering. The story revolves around a young girl from Oregon travelling by train to go to school in Harvard and discovering unknown details about her deceased mother on the way. The heroine ends up trying to unravel the mystery behind 21 sculptures her mother made before her death, each of them containing a cryptographic message. The novel also tells about the history of how the Silk Road black market was created and why. Analysing the difference between her approach to writing about bitcoin and that of the authors like Nathaniel Popper (Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money), Michele brought up its gender dimension:

All these guys, all these men are writing these non-fiction ‘these are the facts as I know them and I am going to state them so they must be true’ and I am like, no, let’s just have fun and I will write something fictional.

Bitcoin Belle recalled the Bitcoin Girls Night Out initiative which she started together with Pua Pyland, the author of The Bitcoin Wife blog. Seven and Pyland opened an online chat where 130 women from four continents were discussing bitcoin and blockchain. Among the 30 most active members, twelve began to meet weekly, which in turn led to the creation of the London Women in Bitcoin meetups, organised by Rhian Lewis and Magdalena, also known as Bitcoin Mama.

On 2 May 2014 Pyland left the bitcoin community announcing her decision on Facebook and Tweeter:

What does Bitcoin mean to you? The answer to this question is as varied & unique as every person involved in this movement – as it should be. And when I say Bitcoin, I mean the Big B. Not the protocol. Not the currency. Bitcoin the movement. Bitcoin has shaped and redefined my global view, my understanding of what money is, and my appreciation of what defines value in each of us. You are beautiful people. These rich & powerful responses are why I'm a better person because of the Bitcoin movement. I learn from you all. What was relevant then, what was relevant 6 months, or even 3 weeks ago continues to change in the Bitcoin space. That is a good thing. And it's crazy to me that there are nearly 7,000 of you on Twitter that have joined me along on this Bitcoin journey. You are all amazing! I'm taking a break from Bitcoin for a spell & will be intermittently available via email. … Keep fightin' the good fight peeps. Love you all. Aloha ‪#‎bitcoin!

Somewhat a year later, Pyland told Fortune that when she started writing about the cryptocurrency “the community was small, and there were no forward-facing female advocates. My husband and I were early adopters, and I was looking to provide a different voice and perspective on Bitcoin…. Fast-forward to today. There are so many strong female voices in Bitcoin, and they are all very positive advocates to get more women involved.”

Spreading the word

In the meantime, in addition to the London bitcoin meetups for women, Rhian Lewis, who had been a digital journalist at thetimes.co.uk, co-developed a cryptocurrency calculator and altcoin monitor CountMyCrypto. Currently, she is a member of Yope team, a Berlin-based collective of software professionals developing various applications on top of the bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains. Yope has just been nominated among the ten finalists to join the first cohort of the nexuslab virtual bootcamp.

As early as 2014, Lewis argued that “bitcoin needs to gain traction among both sexes if it is to become a truly mainstream payment option,” as women are largely responsible for household expenses. Moreover, Lewis remarked that the question of the inclusion of women in the bitcoin community is intimately related to how bitcoin promoters address the wider community.

Most recently, in a Medium blog post entitled Why I run a group for women in Bitcoin, Lewis explained how, though overall welcoming to women, bitcoin meetups are perceived as directed towards tech-savvy men, which, in turn, deters women from joining and trying to learn more about the emerging technology:

It’s my belief that every time the words “women” and “blockchain” or “cryptocurrency” or “Bitcoin” or “fintech” are juxtaposed in a sentence or phrase, it’s a reminder — subconscious or conscious — that instead of being “not for me”, this amazing, compelling area of technology is for everyone. Some women who have turned up at the group simply to learn more have confessed that they would never have had the courage or even the desire to turn up at to an almost exclusively male group, whom they perceived as being intimidatingly knowledgeable, and ask beginner questions.

The involvement of women in business, as well as in tech, is a long-standing agenda of a number of public forums, such as the Annual Africa Business Conference, hosted in February 2016 by the Harvard Business School. The conference featured a panel entitled Women in African Business: Opportunities and Challenges. To quote the panel description, “as we join forces to create innovative African businesses which pull the continent up, unlocking African women’s full potential is more than a sound strategic initiative: it is an imperative.”

The bitcoin industry is confronted by the same problem, namely, how to motivate a greater number of women to use cryptocurrencies, and it is no coincidence that Elizabeth Rossiello, founder and CEO of the universal payment and trading platform for Africa BitPesa, tweeted about it as she attended the Women in African Business panel.

A self-described feminist, Rossiello keeps talking about the involvement of women in the bitcoin community, as in March 2016, when she posted on Twitter that 25% of the speakers featured at the Blockchain and Bitcoin Africa Conference 2016 are female. “Africa leading the way again,” Rossiello wrote.

Providing education

There are way more women involved in the bitcoin and tech industry in general than is often thought. In the words of Daniel Roberts, “rumors of the lack of women in the bitcoin industry have been greatly exaggerated.”

In her recent blog post, Meltem Demirors also noted:

When I first started my journey down the bitcoin rabbit hole, I never expected to be surrounded by so many women. People always seem surprised that there are a lot of women who work on various problems — whether technical, academic, commercial, regulatory, or PR — in both bitcoin and blockchain technology.

Demirors also argued that “education is the primary tool we have to get more women into bitcoin.” One of the best examples in this regard is the celebrated Code to Inspire initiative which is a non-profit project “committed to educating female students in Afghanistan and improving their technical literacy by teaching them how to code so that they can find future employment as a freelancer and become entrepreneurs driving innovation.”

Founded by an Afghan bitcoin enthusiast Fereshteh Forough, Code to Inspire has just received a Google RISE Award for its contribution to informal education. In addition to its founder and CEO, Code to Inspire counts with one more charismatic female team member who has a long and stable relationship with bitcoin, namely Elizabeth McCauley. Appearing in an episode of The Tatiana Show in March 2016, McCauley was described by the host, the singer and songwriter who launched her own “artist altcoin” Tatiana Moroz, as a “bitcoin badass”.

Following her appointment as Director of Operations and Outreach for Bitcoin Magazine, McCauley then worked for BitPay, then on the Bitcoin Foundation Board of Directors and on the Board of Code to Inspire, and currently is employed as Global Business Development Head for Coinsecure, the lead Indian Bitcoin exchange. McCauley believes that “bitcoin is very promising for women” because it is capable of empowering those excluded from traditional finance by giving them an alternative.

 

Diana Bogdan