Diversity and Inclusion in Crypto: Work in Progress?

Crypto has been an industry predominantly dominated by white men, especially from developed countries. That’s just a fact for anyone with eyes. So, it didn’t start by being pretty diverse or inclusive, even if the whole gist of decentralization and self-custodial money was to include everyone or as many people as possible. Luckily, things have improved over the years, but diversity and inclusion in crypto still seem to be a work in progress.

Now, to be fair, a lot of people participating here tend to be anonymous and therefore we know close to nothing about their “diversity stats” —ethnic, gender, sexual orientation, age, nationality, etc. Satoshi Nakamoto is a great example. We’re not even 100% sure that he is (or was?) a guy. Still, among the ones that have decided to step into the public (CEOs, employees, journalists, adopters, and more) there is only a minority of non-white-men among the powerful ones (founders and leaders), while it seems that most adopters are, indeed, non-white-men.

Let’s start with some stats to check how that’s going so far.

Current landscape

Or as current as the stats and reports have allowed us to know. Likely, the first thing that stands out about this topic is the gender gap in crypto. According to Forex Suggest, as of 2023, there were only 6% female CEOs of crypto companies. In their list of the 50 most influential crypto CEOs, barely three women appear. On the other hand, according to Coin Dance, Bitcoin (the most used coin) community engagement shows around 14.2% activity from females and 85.7% from males. For the BIS, less than 35% of all crypto trading app users globally were female in 2022.

Similar reports are all over the industry, but almost always show the same gender gap. It’s not the only type of statistic worth noting for diversity purposes, though. This is an interesting one: as discovered by Pew Research, 24% of Asian adults and 21% of Black or Hispanic adults in the United States have invested in crypto, compared to only 14% of white adults. Besides, as indicated by Chainalysis, the countries that have most adopted cryptocurrencies are developing markets, such as their top three in 2023: India, Nigeria, and Vietnam.

Age is also a factor to consider in adoption and general inclusion in crypto. As shownin Bankrate, and also to Coin Dance, millennials (born 1981-1996) are the majority, followed by Gen X (born 1965-1980). Older and younger generations, for some reason, are behind in adoption. As for the sexual orientation aspect, a survey by Motley Fool in 2023 discovered that 36% of LGBTQ+ Americans have a cryptocurrency wallet, in contrast to 16% of the total US population.

Women and Minorities in Crypto

If we scrutinize the stats above, we can conclude that crypto adoption is more likely in people who have been most excluded from traditional financial services, or whose countries have certain monetary issues or limitations. However, differences in age and gender can’t be fully explained by it.

On the other hand, crypto founders, leaders, and top employees are still mostly white men, all over the world. According to another study by Forex Suggest, Chainalysis is the crypto company with the highest proportion of females in its top team —46.2%. It’s not bad, but it means that the best so far still has more than half of the men leading. Meanwhile, other firms like Alchemy, Bitpanda, and Ledger are 100% male-dominated.

All of this doesn’t mean that minorities can only participate as silent crypto adopters. There are numerous decentralized projects and protocols founded and managed by minorities, and that have been built to support minorities too.

Some Initiatives

Black individuals and communities, for instance, have developed numerous crypto projects to address economic inequality and empower themselves. Examples include Equity Coin, a Black-owned cryptocurrency that invests in affordable housing, and Long Neck Ladies, an NFT project by a young Black girl that has generated significant revenue. Black-owned DAOs and crypto businesses, like some crypto exchanges, are providing access to and funding for underrepresented groups, enabling greater financial inclusion and eliminating racial biases in funding processes.

Women and the LGBTQ+ community have found an open space in crypto as well. Namely, NFT collections like Queer Rise and Bit Baddies aim to represent women and queer culture, while supporting organizations like wayOUT. OutRight, and Little Pink Houses of Hope. Other initiatives, such as The MetaPride Land Festival and First Contact, provide a safe metaverse space for LGBTQ+ individuals and support LGBTQ+ charities.

AthenaDAO focuses on women’s health research and education, while Crypto Tech Women empowers women in tech through education and advisorship programs. The Queer Museum of Digital Art supports queer artists, and the Yes Queen Club promotes diversity in the crypto world with proceeds supporting inclusion initiatives. SheFi offers crypto education to women and non-binary individuals, and the NGO Diversity in Blockchain is dedicated to ensuring equal participation in the crypto industry.

What’s left to do?

Well, decentralized protocols don’t care about who you are, where are you from, or what are your current circumstances. They’re mostly automatic systems designed to include everyone, so we are able to use them for whatever (harmless thing) we want. The one inclusion-related thing we must still worry about in crypto is the potential censorship of these systems, be it by governments, by companies, or by any other centralized player.

That’s why we should use the most decentralized and censorship-resistant protocols. On Bitcoin and Ethereum, for example, large mining pools or nodes controlled by a few entities can potentially influence transaction processing and their inclusion into the blockchain. Additionally, infrastructure providers like major exchanges and wallet services can become points of centralization, impacting the network's overall decentralization and susceptibility to censorship.

Obyte, for its part, stands out for its ultimate decentralization and resistance to censorship. Unlike blockchains, which rely on a limited number of block producers that can potentially censor transactions, Obyte uses a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) system. This means transactions are added directly to the network by users, without needing intermediaries, eliminating central points of control and making it truly decentralized.

This design ensures that Obyte is free from domination and censorship, providing a secure and accessible platform for anyone worldwide to store and transfer value, and even to build new Dapps, DAOs, or any other inclusive project. Features like customized tokens, conditional payments, textcoins, chatbots, and a private coin are available for everyone, without coding. We can confidently say that Obyte promotes diversity and inclusion in crypto by eliminating central control and enabling equal access for all.

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