IWD 2025: Web3 aims at mass adoption, but it won’t happen without women

Today's digital frontier knows no limits when it comes to innovation, yet a major proportion of the world's population stands at its outskirts - the female half. While crypto has grown rapidly over the last few years and has set the pace for a new future in finance, women remain underrepresented, both as investors and in the workforce. 

In 2024, 39% of women owned crypto against 61% of men, according to cryptocurrency payments gateway Triple A - up from 37% the previous year. However, while female ownership is slowly rising, what is, perhaps, more concerning is the fact that women are still expressively underrepresented in the crypto landscape as founders: only 8.6% of the startups in the crypto space are female-led, according to a study conducted by Bitget. 

More than a gender issue, this massive gap between men and women highlights problems for the mass adoption of web3 technologies. 

Imbalanced decentralization

With promises of decentralization, collective financial empowerment, and democratic access, web3 has presented itself as a possible solution for inequality. However, the current imbalance is also the result of historical financial exclusion and the lack of proper financial education for girls. 

And although some might point out that women tend to be more risk-averse than men, I dare say that such an important issue should be viewed with a more social approach than an evolutionary one. 

Traditional finance was indeed designed by men, for men. Throughout history, women have had restricted property rights (in many countries, they were not allowed to own property until the early 19th century), earned lower wages despite performing the same roles as their male counterparts (a disparity that still exists), and faced more difficulties in accumulating and investing wealth. 

Financial exclusion

Women have also historically had limited access to credit, for example. In the US, up until 1974, when the Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) was implemented, banks would oftentimes refuse to grant women credit or loans without a male co-signer, making it harder for them to open their own business or invest independently. Only a year before that were women admitted to the trading floor of the London Stock Exchange (LSE) for the first time. 

As the financial sector evolved, lending, hiring employees, and investing would predominantly be conducted by male employees or male-led businesses. Systematically excluded from high-paying finance jobs, the female portion of the population then became underrepresented in banking and investment firms, a systemic pattern that was carried over to emerging financial technologies, like crypto and web3. 

In the S&P 500 for instance, only 52 of the 500 companies have female executive directors, showcasing the ongoing challenge in the pursuit of gender equality. This problem is mirrored in the crypto space – according to a 2022 study by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), only 27% of the top crypto startup employees were female. 

The importance of female participation

For an industry that is loudly proud of being avant garde, perpetuating the patterns from decades ago, even if unintentionally, is not only outdated, but can actually lead to profit loss. More than just a matter of fairness and equality, it is a strategic need for the growth of web3, because when the ecosystem is diverse, this supports the development of inclusive products, greater adoption, and a stronger range of solutions.

This has already been proven in traditional industries. While only 6% of CEOs are women across the globe, companies that employ a higher number of women on their boards delivered 2-5% higher returns in developed markets and 2-6% lower volatility in emerging markets, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.

In web3, an additional challenge is to encourage greater participation of women – and here, the female role model plays a particularly important role. If most leadership positions are typically taken by men, this acts as a discouraging factor. Seeing other women involved in this space would help new female users follow their example.

Driving change

This issue could be addressed by targeted investments in female-led blockchain projects and companies, featuring women speakers at conferences and in the media, and involving them in industry discussions. Actions like these will not only aid in normalizing their presence but also bring a different, more diverse perspective. 

That's not to say change isn't happening already. We have mentorship programs like Web3Women and Future Ready, the Future Fund that provides microgrants for web3 education, and many others. However, we need to see much more of this: both on the micro level within each web3 project, and on a grander scale with investments in female projects led by prominent venture capital firms.

What needs to change first, though, is web3's "bro culture". Projects in this space must become more open to alternative viewpoints and approaches and more accepting of female leadership. Only when that happens can the core values of web3 – like decentralization, inclusion and financial empowerment – truly be achieved.