With its immense potential, the crypto industry is growing rapidly across the globe. More and more industries of various sectors are actively interested in crypto. According to a recent report from Crypto.com, the number of users involved in crypto could touch a whopping 1 billion by the end of 2022. However, with the evident imbalance between men and women, there is only a limited potential for any industry to flourish.
Fintech is especially known for its immense difference between male and female participants. With a male-dominated industry history, the financial sector has women in merely 11% of the C-suite roles as of 2021.
The Fintech industry has a history of consistently having a lopsided representation of men and women. Crypto Industry is no different. When asked who they believe to be a crypto enthusiast, people would generally choose someone young, male, and tech-savvy.
Recent research by Forex Suggest revealed the immense employee gender shift in the crypto industry, with the top companies having women on merely 21.6% of senior posts. Binance, the biggest crypto company studied in the research, displayed a gender shift of 30% female to 70% male. At the same time, the second largest company, FTX, showcased a split of merely 16.7% female senior staff.
According to Teamstage, today, women comprise around 47.7% of the entire global workforce. However, data by Human Capital revealed that merely 30.4% of the new hires in the crypto industry between 2018 and 2021 were females. While the number of female participants in the crypto industry is growing, we must strive to enforce a more representative and gender-balanced environment.
Source: Human Capital
Having a female in leading positions or as the face of the business holds utmost significance in this era. It assists in creating a culture that welcomes and appreciates the talent of women in the industry. These days, there are several female founders and executives from various arenas of the crypto space.
What is more is that these women are immensely vocal and passionate, acting as influencers across the globe. They act as an active means of spreading the word that women have the potential to work in the crypto space just as men do.
Today, several awards focus on celebrating and honoring individual female achievements. They also contribute to portraying the incredible accomplishments of women across the crypto industry, inspiring other women to get involved.
Though at a nascent age, the crypto and blockchain industry possesses the huge potential to eradicate several long-ossified problems. This includes the evident and wide gender divide, specifically in the leadership positions of the crypto industry.
According to an article at The Street, less than 5% of crypto founders are women. While the present scenario doesn't look very positive, having diversified leadership is essential for the industry's growth. According to research published in the Harvard Business Review, women have shown better performance in resilience, self-development, and initiative-taking.
Hiring women in the lead roles would not only add to the diversity of thoughts but also attract a wider range of investors. Women across the globe must start talking about crypto as a part of their future financial lives. And having a woman as the face or the company's chief executive is one of the best ways to achieve this.
Apart from this, it is important to have women as leaders for a space like crypto, which often gets attacked for its high energy consumption. This is because women, compared to men, are more likely to ensure that the companies they invest in have ESG (Environmental, social, and governance) factors in their policies and logistics.