On the Women’s International Day, Bain Capital Crypto excitedly announced his new investment team with a collage of photos revealing his new lineup was all male.
Women from all corners of the crypto industry have taken notice. Facing the backlash, the original tweet was deletedBain Capital Crypto addressed the controversy and announced Lydia Hilton as a partner soon after.
While this is a step in the right direction, we felt it was important to look at the diversity challenges of the crypto industry – and how they can be overcome – through the lens of women of color.
By definition, web3 is an inspiring vision for a new iteration of the internet. So why build it the same way we did with Web 2.0?
Why reconstruct hierarchies of exclusion in this new era? This tweet is just one of many that highlight the challenge of inclusion and the opportunity to expand the impact of crypto through diversity.
Who benefits from the advantages of cryptocurrency?
The lack of women enjoying the financial advantage of crypto disproportionately affects women of color. For example, 16% of NFT artists are women, and they only received 5% of the multi-billion dollar industry revenue. On the institutional side, Black women make up just 4% of crypto investors worldwide.
However, this gap is complex. Women and people of color are more likely to invest in crypto. On 44% of all crypto traders are people of color and 41% are women.
Black and Latino communities are drive wider adoption of cryptocurrency, with 23% of black Americans and 24% of Latinx Americans possessing these assets, compared to only 11% of white Americans.
How is it possible that a group more likely to be interested in investing in a currency receives an inequitable distribution of the resulting wealth?
Picture credits: Twitter
