New Wild West: Why are there so few women in the blockchain world
While corporations and governments of different countries introduced quotas for women in the councils of shareholders, the parliament or the technical sphere, an industry emerged in the world, which by the beginning of 2018 increased its capitalization to 700 billion dollars - and at the same time does not observe a single consensus on gender equality. This, of course, the blockchain and cryptocurrency. We understand why the new sphere ignored women, how cryptocurrencies fell in love with the "Red Tablet PCs" and where to hold thematic conferences so as not to offend anyone.
Bro culture
According to some estimates, last year the Bitcoins brought investors eighty-five billion dollars, and only five of them went to women. And another 94.5% of people who invest in cryptocurrencies are men, according to Google Analitics. However, the finance market is in principle limited for women - they occupied only 9.4% of the 7,700 jobs in US investment funds in 2015, but this is still more impressive than in the field of cryptocurrency.
Due to the fact that the blockchain only recently became the mainstream sphere, male crypto enthusiasts, in the absence of reputational control, managed to create a small-scale “bro-culture”. The North American Bitcoin conference, where only three of the 87 speakers were women, was held at a strip club in Miami. True, even for the sake of three places, the organizers had to quarrel - before that, only one was planned.
Major market players release advertisements with a woman in a bathing suit and the words “Touch my ICO” on top, in Russia they are holding a beauty contest called Miss Blockchain. True, there are no tasks for awareness in cryptocurrencies - the girls just participate in the defile. Contest guests are very happy for them - a great opportunity to "find a rich man."
Cryptocurrencies even like radical fighters for the rights of men Red Pill. At Reddit, it is actively discussed how investing in cryptocurrency helps to avoid a fair division of property: the presence of conditional bitcoins is easy to hide, and the laws of most countries do not regulate this sphere at all. Some men gloat over the fact that their wives considered their blockchain passion to be stupid, but they would not receive a penny from a sudden increase in cryptocurrency during a divorce.
Prudent women
Deliberate masculinity is one of the reasons why women came to the blockchain later than men. If even left states like Venezuela are talking about using technology now, then a few years ago its potential was not so conspicuous. Cryptocurrency was used to buy three types of goods: weapons, illegal pornography, drugs. Their sales are usually engaged in men.
In addition, at first, cryptocurrencies were a parochial hobby of techno geeks, most of whom were men. The number of women in IT and technical areas is certainly growing, but equality is still very far away, so the imbalance in the blockchain clearly reflects the general trend.
It is believed that women are less prone to risky financial transactions. A famous study by former trader John Coates, now a neuroscientist from Cambridge, suggests the hypothesis that men take a risk more easily because of high testosterone levels. And the more they risk, the higher the level of the hormone rises and, accordingly, the propensity for irrational behavior. In a woman, the researcher did not notice such increasing dynamics.
Exactly for this reason, many are skeptical about cryptocurrency: if cautious women are not invested in them, then we are dealing with a bubble. Coates himself expects women to become a stabilizing force in financial markets.
True, the results of his research were refuted by the team of the Swedish economist Magnus Johannesson. The researchers made a sample of two hundred women who have already passed menopause, some of them gave estrogen, another placebo, and the last - testosterone and offered to play games, the result of which depends on the ability to take risks. The results of all three groups were about the same.
But women can be more cautious not because of biology, but by public expectations. The blockchain industry is often compared to the Wild West - a place for "brave men." Financial Times columnist Hanna Kuchler describes this gap well using the example of her own younger brother, who persuaded her to invest in Bitcoins several years ago: "I have a profession, a diploma, a credit card, and he goes to bed late, understands cool music and travels for several months. " The journalist believes that it is unreasonable to write off prudence only on biology, as long as there is a whole system of expectations and restrictions affecting the socialization of women.
Women's cryptosholes
“Women, pay attention to cryptocurrencies, otherwise men will again take all the money into their hands,” venture investor Alexia Bonatsos warns on Twitter. Her advice should be more girls. For example, Blythe Masters is a wunderkind from the world of finance, who became the executive director of JP Morgan at twenty-eight years of age and developed technologies that changed the entire global credit system.
Three years ago, Masters retired from mainstream finance and launched a digital startup startup Asset Holdings. He is developing software that will help banks and investors use the blockchain on the financial market. "Now players have to meet high requirements for reporting and transparency of operations. As a result, the cost of this has increased, and the total income has decreased.
Blockchain will help solve these problems ", - says Masters in an interview with Bloomberg. Another celebrity went to the blockchain - Elizabeth Stark. Previously, she taught courses on IT at Yale and Stanford, and now she is running a Lightning Labs startup that tests cryptotransaction acceleration technology which she also founded.
Women gradually appear in all areas of the industry. Cindy Macadam is the president of Xapo, one of the largest cryptographic services (a program that stores a currency protected by a special key). Pamela Morgan is the founder of Third Key Solution - a company engaged in the security of cryptostates. But there are more creative solutions - for example, the American singer Tatiana Moroz launched the Tatiana Coin cryptocurrency, which should help musicians get a fair payment for downloading and listening to their releases, and Julia Turiansky runs a popular YouTube channel about anarchism, cryptocurrency, politics and relationships .
But the most interesting thing is the involvement of women in cryptostates in developing countries - and their liberation potential. For example, Roya Mahmoub and Fereshteh Foro launched the Women's Annex, offering girls to write blogs and make money on advertising. True, it quickly became clear that many do not have bank cards - then the payment was transferred to Bitcoins.
For countries where women are limited in rights, blockchain is a great opportunity to gain financial independence. In Uganda, Tricia Martinez launched the blockchain platform Wala, which allows you to quickly and easily transfer small amounts. Many Ugandans do not have the opportunity to regularly throw money through traditional financial institutions, because they are subject to a large commission.
There are local activists in the blockchain. For example, in May of this year, the event agency CryptoFriends will hold the first conference on the blockchain, where only women will be invited. And Caitlin Breitman, co-founder of the Tezos blockchain platform for digital contracts (she raised a record $ 232 million for ICO), launched the Attack 51% activist project, promoting the idea that if someone concentrates more than half of the computing power of cryptocurrency in their hands, It can fully control the blockchain.
As long as the industry continues to be male, the more extensive the blockchain will be used, the more women will work in it - the states are already taking control of cryptocurrencies (as in South Korea) or using the blockchain for their needs (as in Estonia), so the matter will soon and before gender imbalance in high positions.
