These women are investing to fix the ‘diversity problem’ in crypto: It isn’t ‘just male dominated. We want to show representation’

These women are investing to fix the ‘diversity problem’ in crypto: It isn’t ‘just male dominated. We want to show representation’

Olayinka Odeniran founded the Black Women Blockchain Council (BWBC) in 2018 after attending the North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami that year.

There, just three of 88 speakers were women , with the rest being mostly white men. Its so-called “networking party” was held at a strip club , where several women felt uncomfortable and disappointed.

After experiencing that, “women in the space basically said that they had enough,” Odeniran tells CNBC Make It. “Instead of complaining, we decided to band together and create our own community within each other.”

Though it was incredibly exciting to build a support system of women in crypto, “I started to look around, and I was seeing only a handful of people that look like me. So, I started seeking out other Black women in this space,” she says. Odeniran has since invested in onboarding Black women to the space through the BWBC. The global benefit LLC provides Black women around the world with educational resources to understand blockchain and build wealth.

Olayinka Odeniran, founder of the Black Women Blockchain Council (BWBC).

Courtesy of Olayinka Odeniran

In July 2021, the BWBC partnered with notable Ethereum software company ConsenSys to launch an online program to train half a million Black women globally to become blockchain developers by 2030. The initiative will roll out in the third quarter of 2022, Odeniran says.

“We want to show representation and show that this space is not just male dominated ,” she says. “There’s a lot more women in this. We’re doing a lot of great things.”

Odeniran isn’t alone in this mission. Alongside her and the BWBC, there are other women-led crypto organizations aiming to promote diversity in the space. This includes non-profit Women in Blockchain (WiB) and decentralized autonomous organizations ( DAOs ) like the Komorebi Collective , among many others. ‘There’s a problem with highlighting women that are already in the space’

Odeniran first learned about bitcoin in 2016 while working as a chief compliance officer at a financial firm. While she was first skeptical of it, Odeniran became more interested in the technology after researching more and reading its white paper: “I felt that as a woman in the Black community, blockchain was something that could definitely help us,” she says.

She also mentions the importance of being able to trace transactions on the blockchain, especially in places like Africa where people are hedging against currency devaluation and theft.

Manasi Vora , founder of WiB, would agree.

In 2016, Vora came across bitcoin after researching monetary policy. Though she had been working in traditional finance at a bank, her interest in the topic came after prime minister Narendra Modi banned most of India’s currency notes , devaluing it almost overnight.

“That sent a lot of shockwaves across the Indian economy,” Vora says. “The marginalized population was affected the most. And that was a pivotal moment where I started thinking about money.”

Following that, she fell down the bitcoin “rabbit hole.” Though she found the space promising, Vora often noticed that she was one of few women in a room of hundreds of men at industry conferences.

Manasi Vora, founder of non-profit Women in Blockchain (WiB) and Komorebi Collective DAO core member.

Courtesy of Manasi Vora

“On one hand, there was this narrative back then that crypto is going to change the financial world. But on the other hand, I was seeing the same systemic biases from traditional finance playing out in crypto, where there wasn’t really enough diversity in the decision-making room,” Vora says.

In 2017, Vora left her job to pursue crypto full-time, launching WiB, an organization focused on increasing diversity in the crypto space. Through WiB, Vora hopes to break down barriers to entry in crypto by providing educational resources.Additionally, Vora is passionate about funding women and nonbinary founders in crypto, which led her to co-create the Komorebi Collective DAO in 2021. Its purpose is to invest in start-ups and projects led by women and nonbinary creators.In theory, a DAO is a blockchain-based collective that isn’t governed by one person or entity . Instead, its rules and governance are coded in smart contracts and cannot be changed unless voted upon by the DAO’s members. Though many have popped up recently, DAOs can be risky bets, with many safety and legal unknowns to be worked out .Vora and WiB partnered with she256 , a nonprofit that also aims to increase diversity in crypto, and Kinjal Shah , a partner at VC Blockchain Capital, to create the Komorebi Collective as an investment DAO.“Inclusivity needs to be a larger part of […]

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