“NFTs can be a great pathway to draw women into crypto space,” says Lavinia Osbourne
Lavinia Osbourne, Founder of Women in Blockchain Talks, said that women who are apprehending ways for entering the male-dominated crypto and blockchain space could be drawn with the help of non-fungible tokens.
Although the pandemic has left lakhs of people in financial strain, losing jobs, unable to physically visit banks or and many such financial crunch concerns – it has the potential to push more women into investing in crypto. Especially women losing jobs or planning to shift careers can look to the crypto-verse as their new source of making money. Osbourne also stated that the ongoing surge in media coverage of non-fungible tokens had made the cryptocurrencies “more relatable” to working professionals within the creative industries. She was quoted as saying that NFTs is a great pathway “to entice people into the crypto space”. She added that people view NFTs thinking that they’re largely unable to understand the functioning and it appears “different”, and when they read stories in the media that people are making money with NFTs, they also feel “how can I get involved?”
When making these comments, Osbourne might have pondered over the increasing popularity of an NFT project that has been launched recently by That ’70s Show. Mila Kunis from Family Guy also expressed that she developed a curiosity about cryptocurrencies during the pandemic, noticing that it seems like a “very masculine area.” Her interest in crypto led her to pioneer the NFT project Stoner Cats that features eminent names from Hollywood and the crypto-verse, including Co-Founder of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin. The project sold a total of 10,420 NFTs in only 35 minutes, having streamed its first episode days later.
Osbourne also discussed that although NFTs can bring women into the cryptocurrency domain, there was still an evident “underrepresentation of females” in the crypto and blockchain organizations. Roughly 34 per cent of women work in the tech industry, but only 12 per cent of them are employed by the blockchain firms, according to Women in Blockchain Talks. Citing the figures, Osbourne proposed bridging the gap through a campaign that encourages women into blockchain and tech, highlighting that “STEM is a space for them.” The campaign further welcomes women to sign up and learn about the financial and personal aspects of entering the cryptocurrency space.
Osbourne also explained how women looking for promising careers with long term jobs should look into the tech space because it has been “overwhelmingly male.” As part of her vision, Osbourne pledged to bring 50,000 women into blockchain by the year 2023.
