Unlocking inclusion for women of color in web3

On International Women’s Day, Bain Capital Crypto enthusiastically announced its new investment team with a collage of photos revealing that its new lineup consisted solely of men.

Women in all corners of the crypto industry took notice. Faced with the backlash, the original tweet was deleted, Bain Capital Crypto addressed the controversy, and announced Lydia Hilton as a partner shortly thereafter.

Although this was a move in the right direction, we felt it was important to address the crypto industry’s diversity challenges — 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 as we did Web 2.0?

Why re-build hierarchies of exclusion in this new era? This tweet is only one of many that highlight the challenge of inclusion and the opportunity to broaden crypto’s impact through diversity.

Who benefits from the upside of cryptocurrency?

The lack of women benefiting from the financial upside of crypto disproportionately affects women of color. For example, 16% of NFT artists are women, and they have only received 5% of the multibillion-dollar industry’s turnover. On the institutional side, Black women make up just 4% of crypto investors worldwide.

However, this discrepancy is complex. Women and people of color are more likely to invest in crypto. About 44% of all crypto traders are people of color, and 41% are women.

Black and Latinx communities are driving broader adoption of cryptocurrency, with 23% of Black Americans and 24% of Latinx Americans owning 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?

Image Credits: Twitter