As blockchain and cryptocurrency become a new front in financial industry innovation, women have joined, as founders of many prominent projects that are creating new opportunities. While the base of the blockchain industry has been in place for more than a decade, numerous areas remained underdeveloped.
Many areas in blockchain and cryptocurrency can benefit from new ideas and trained professionals that are applying their experience from other areas to the growing decentralized ecosystem.
Women-led Crypto Projects
Here are some of the women-led crypto projects that are making a difference today – and offering people all over the world new tools that are highly useful.
1. Lightning Labs
The co-founder and CEO of Lightning Labs, Elizabeth Stark, is also an educator, lecturer at Yale University, and entrepreneur. She saw an opportunity to improve on blockchain and worked to make Lighting Labs a reality.
Founded in 2016 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Lightning Labs is a technology startup that developed a level two open protocol layer that leverages blockchain and smart contracts to make transactions cheaper and faster.
Not only does this help with blockchain scalability, but it also opens up Bitcoin transactions to new markets that need low-cost transactions. The startup developed the Lightning Network Daemon and implemented the developer-friendly Lightning Network protocol. With the goal of bringing a system based on cryptography to market, Lightning Labs connects the world of open-source software with Bitcoin and next-generation fintech ideas.
While these ideas may have seemed limited in utility, now that nations like El Salvador are using Bitcoin as a national currency, platforms like Lightning Network may lead the way into a new world of low-cost decentralized transactions.
2. Defy Trends
Defy Trends is bringing advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) analytics to the cryptocurrency investing space. It offers investors of every stripe a way to successfully invest in cryptos, without loads of research and analysis.
The team behind the platform wants to include anyone who is curious about escaping what they call the “outdated, centralized financial system.” In order to help investors achieve success in the crypto markets, it has created an easy-to-understand User Interface (UI) that is the front end of an advanced analytics platform that both delivers real-time data and advanced predictive tools.
DeFy Trends is also focused on education and allows people to fully understand why cryptos are different from the financial system they are replacing. The team at DeFy is led by co-founder Imge Su Cetin, who is an experienced data scientist. The company also features women like its CFO Elena Garidis, who worked at JP Morgan Chase international Private Bank.
3. Colendi
Mihriban Ersin Tekmen is the co-founder and COO at Colendi – a company that is using blockchain to make the fintech space better. Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Switzerland, Colendi is a decentralized credit scoring platform using blockchain technology to provide a secure and democratic service to fintech firms everywhere.
Colendi enables the development of financial applications for unbanked individuals as well as the development of credibility assessment. Microcredit, installment procurement, P2P financing, and reliability testing are all made easier with the tools the company developed. More apps and systems will be built on top of the Colendi protocol. It has the potential to help hundreds of millions of people globally who are shut out of the legacy financial system.
Colendi's goal is to support the world's unbanked citizens to achieve a more inclusive position in the field of microfinance. As one of the few women holding C-level positions in the blockchain industry, Mihriban is an advocate for women in the tech sector.
Mihriban is also the co-founder of Fintechtime, an independent publication that provides the latest news and analysis on the world fintech market, which she sees as helpful to people who have been marginalized by a financial system that isn't universally accessible.
4. BitPesa
Elizabeth Rossiello is the Founder and CEO of BitPesa, a Payments and Foreign Exchange platform for Emerging Markets using blockchain and Bitcoin. Established in 2013, it was the first company to connect Bitcoin to mobile money platforms in African nations.
The startup developed a digital currency payment platform that accepts Bitcoin payments, exchanges bitcoins for local currency, and sends funds to a bank account or mobile wallet. Rossiello has expanded the company’s influence from its roots in Nairobi, Kenya across Africa and Europe. In addition, she was selected as a member of the Investment Committee for Bamboo Capital and the Future Council of the World Economic Forum on Blockchain.
Bitcoin can make an outsized impact anywhere banking services are limited – and BitPesa has proved how popular it is in emerging markets.
The Beginning of a New Financial System
According to research by CoinMarketCap, while the blockchain industry is dominated by men, the number of women working in crypto has increased by 43 percent last year.
These women-owned projects are making a big impact in the blockchain and crypto world, and paving the way to motivate other females to become a part of the global, decentralized community. Just because the number of women in tech-related fields is significantly lower than that of men doesn't mean things will always continue to be the same way in the future.
As a novel technology, blockchain will impact many other industries in the coming years and women will play an important role in this revolution. On the other hand, the blockchain industry also has the potential to give women financial independence and freedom while advancing their business goals.
No one can deny that the success of these women is a positive sign for the future with the development of further technology projects in the works.
Disclaimer: The opinions in this article belong to the author alone and should not be considered investment advice.
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