Mobile crypto wallet Valora published a report on the crypto gender gap, claiming that more women investors were active in the male-dominated crypto space over the last year than ever before.
According to Valora, 60.6% of women who owned Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies at the time the survey was carried out made their first investment in the space less than 12 months ago, suggesting that gender disparity in decentralized finance was thinning.
Women were also slightly more likely to own NFTs compared to men, and trumped their male peers in the ownership of music NFTs, utility NFTs, and digital land.
Learning curve is still there
On the whole, Valora’s research appears to confirm the widespread belief that women are more risk averse than men as it shows women were less likely to invest disproportionately large portions of their portfolio in the blockchain industry, compared to their male counterparts.
At the same time, women were 5% less likely to use the safer hardware crypto storage and slightly more likely than men to keep their digital assets in mobile wallets, Valora report said. Women also appeared to feel uncertain about their education in the blockchain technology, with 42.8% responding that they "roughly" understood the concept and only 3.3% considering themselves experts.
Those findings stand in sharp contrast with the visibility of women crypto influencers like CryptoWendy or GirlGoneCrypto, as well as well-positioned women crypto advocates such as Laura Shin, Cynthia Lummis, Kirsten Gillibrand, or Hester Peirce. On the other hand, Valora's results show that women are well aware of the complexity of decentralized finance, which could encourage them to keep learning.
Bullish newcomers
In the past six months, initial crypto investments among women more than doubled in comparison to over two years ago, the report concluded, suggesting that women flocked to the crypto industry during the 2021 bull market. The survey underpinning the report was conducted in March and April 2022, so the results are not reflective of the current crypto bear market or the uncertainty unleashed by the collapse of Terra.
What's more, all of Valora’s respondents were sourced from developed countries, including the UK, Germany, France, Spain, and the US. Meanwhile, other research suggests that when it comes to reducing the crypto gender gap, developing countries are way ahead.
Developing countries in the lead
The findings are in line with previous research on the matter, including Gemini’s Global State of Crypto industry report based on a survey concluded in February. According to Gemini, 47% of respondents who admitted they were curious about crypto were women.
Women constituted at least 50% of all crypto holders in developing countries like Nigeria and Indonesia. Across Latin America, 54% of those likely to purchase crypto in the next year were women, Gemini said.
Developed countries were not far behind, with France reporting 45% women crypto investors, according to Gemini. In the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany, adoption levels among women were in the ballpark of 30%, but among these countries’ crypto-curious, women constituted between 39% and 48%.
Women invest more at the outset, at least in Australia
Encouraging data on the fiscal year 2020/2021 was shared by Australian crypto exchange BTC Markets, which reported a 172% growth in its female user base, compared to just 79.5% in men. While the average portfolio size of women investors was slightly lower than that of men, coming to $2650 and $3049 respectively, women committed 15% larger initial deposits.
According to BTC Markets, gender equality among crypto enthusiasts could be a sign of good health of the entire crypto and blockchain space as "the industry becomes more representative of the investment community as a whole," on par with traditional forms of investing.
