There is always something new going on in the cryptocurrency space. In the past few weeks alone, there has been a phishing scandal with OpenSea and smart contract security, more hype over a Bitcoin and President Joe Biden’s cryptocurrency sanctions. In crypto, you have to question everything or you’ll get rugged. Questioning things around you that are deemed “too good to be true” or “too bad to be true will save you from clicking on weird NFT DMs on Instagram. Kind of like how it’s good to have a sense of “greed” for learning about what is going on in crypto, but it’s also important to have just as strong a sense of “fear” around you when thinking about what other people do in the crypto space.
Today is International Women's Day (IWD) and over the past year and a half, my journey into crypto has been a lot of uncharted waters. As a woman on IWD, the power of the gut instinct, also known as our intuition is a paramount skill to have while going through the dark forest, navigating uncharted waters and just learning about the Web3 space. I found the space in late 2020 and connected with the NFT community through the Clubhouse App. There were only a few thousand technologists on the platform and the conversation were all about blockchain and international cultural events. Looking around the crypto space, I used to think, “This feels like a boys’ club.” Because it was. I was going into spaces with white bitcoin maxies talking about the future of banks in blockchain. I hosted virtual Blockchain for Beginners workshops and hundreds of people across the world would tune in and ask questions about the financial technology. We did this for weeks in November 2020 to February 2021. Then the conversation shifted more into NFTs and my “bitcoin boyfriends” (lol) faded to the back, stacking Satoshis and making option calls. As women we wouldn’t be where we are, if it were not for men allowing us to raise the bar and build out better systems. *Some* of ya’ll have helped me stay true the game when I was ready to throw in the towel and go back to traditional lifestyle magazines.
ANYWAYS, at the time, there were not many women in these small rooms. According to study released around 2021, there were less than 5% of women globally who were investors in cryptocurrency (i.e. Bitcoin and Ethereum), let alone even less developers! Given the insights I was reading at the time and also my own discoveries with VR, I knew mass adoption was closer than a lot of economists had predicted in prior years. Ethereum was founded in 2015 and Bitcoin in 2009. As per Greyscale Investments study released in December 2021, the number of female Bitcoin investors climbed 6% year-on-year in 2021. Moreover, a study from Harris Poll found that “25 percent of Black Americans and 15 percent of Hispanics said they’ve bought non-fungible tokens versus 8 percent of white Americans.” 2021 was definitely the year of the NFTs and it’s only going to continue to grow as we move into 2022 , the year of DAOs and DApps. I want to share the positive growth rates in the community and change the narrative so people aren’t afraid to start living in crypto.
Maintaining Professional Relationships
And now we’re finally getting to the hot topic that everyone’s been waiting for, which is relationships. Because this is such an emerging field, there are not a lot of people who really understand the market and like I said before, this is a boys’ club. So there will be a lot of networking and professional dating, if you will, that goes on with investment meetings and meetings with venture capitalists. Over the past five years, I have been building relationships with quite a few high net worth digital asset investors. Especially in LATAM and Europe. The most important thing to know about these people is that you are rarely going to get access to them through traditional means. They’ll invite to the golf course, on a yacht, or to the club to see DeadMau5. Just keep in mind that it’s not actually clear how legal all these projects are, so it’s better to err on the side of caution. If someone seems like a bad apple and has a sketchy-sounding idea for a project, make sure you have everything in writing—even if it’s just a conversation via Slack or on Discord. Moreover, this is why it’s important that women invest in women, so we can have more investment meetings and make more deals at the nail salon. 🗣
With that being said, in the next few columns, I will be documenting some of the innovative and dope DeFi platforms in the space to encourage you to go permissionless and start living how you want! Get ready for the #TheStoryYouHaven’tReadThisWeek 💁🏽♀️
Womxn in Blockchain Dinner
Last month, the Aces ♠️ of ApeWorX hosted a womxn in blockchain dinner to celebrate diversity in the developer space during Miami Hack Week. Some of the womxn in attendance were Tracey, founder of H.E.R. DAO , Doris Hernandez, founder of Dippii NFTs, Masha Healy from the Celo Foundation, Dani Spence from Korii DAO among other amazing investors and friends of the framework. Check out the photo collage below and we also have a TikTok.
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Introducing The Iconic Miss Crypto Clinic
Violet Summer is excited to collaborate with this upcoming NFT collection founded by Camille Dargan, a super close friend and VS community member. In the coming weeks, we’ll share more Alpha and ways to invest in this amazing project.
About IMCC: The Iconic Miss Crypto Clinic is home to the Influential Icons, a limited NFT collection created by women for womxn, who are ready to escape the throngs of society and all it’s demands in search of a simple life, a tighter knit community, and more fulfilling and meaningful work that uplifts our spiritual energies.
At IMCC, all womxn are influential, imperfect, impeccable and iconic. We perceive beauty as a multidimensional concept, and we believe what’s on the inside matters far more than what’s on the surface. True beauty can be found everywhere, especially in the way womxn lead, build, strategize, organize, connect, create, uplift, empathize and love.
IMCC's mission is to uplift the human spirit by infusing the world with warmth and openness in our community and in the companies we will build over time. We’re making this possible by creating a community and collections that celebrate and cultivate the interconnectedness of our inner and outer realities, emotions and aesthetics. Join me in this exciting new journey!
Happy IWD and all the best with IMCC!!