It’s no surprise that cryptocurrency adoption is on the rise. A few months ago we carried out user research that aimed to uncover trends relating to user profiles, spending habits, and attitudes towards crypto.
Curious about the gender split of our database, one of the questions was “What is your Gender?”. Out of our users sampled, it’s largely to be expected that most would be male. Out of 3824 participants, 20% answered as Female, and 80% answered as Male, confirming our hypothesis.
Since the cryptocurrency sphere has been largely male-dominated, this is exactly the kind of skew we would expect. Although crypto is building traction in everyday use and becoming attractive to the everyday person, it is still relatively niche.
If you ask someone to describe the average crypto holder, their answer will be predictable: “nerdy, white, young, male. Maybe still lives at home with their mom, definitely eats pizza in bed”. As difficult as it is to shake this, digging deeper into our data suggests that women crypto holders are catching up, helping to slowly move the needle by debunking this stereotype.
Our research showed us, upon digging into the data a little further, that the split between male and female attitudes towards crypto and digital currency was not as divided as we would anticipate. When asked if they have heard of crypto, 82% of women and 85% of men responded yes. A positive start, these similar numbers indicate that the gap is not as wide as anticipated.
Our next question, “Do you own crypto?”, showed 71% of the women sampled owned crypto, as opposed to 86% of men. According to Coinmarketcap, some European countries are showing an 100% increase in women crypto holders - this means women are catching up in digital asset ownership, and are likely to increase this statistic in the coming years. In comparison to how crypto was even more male-driven a few years ago, 71% is a decent benchmark for success.
With the world increasingly turning to digital assets for cheap, fast, and efficient money transfering, it’s no surprise that women have started to catch onto these trends in recent years. Our data showed that 57% of women viewed digital assets as an alternative to traditional money services, compared to 72% of men. Although the gap is the largest here so far, one must remember that preferring to use digital assets over traditional money services is a bold claim, perhaps reserved for true pioneers of the crypto and digital currency space. Therefore, it’s no surprise men end up coming out on top - perhaps the largest concentration of die-hard crypto and digital asset advocates.
Lastly, we examined the male and female split of how safe our users feel using crypto. Luckily, the divide wasn’t extreme, with 80% of women answering that they felt safe, and 88% of men. Although this paints a near equal picture of the gender attitudes to crypto of our user database, it’s important to note that the general public may not feel the same. The first step is ensuring more of our users are female, and both genders of our users exhibit similar behaviors and attitudes towards cryptocurrency. The next, is helping to shift this paradigm in society at large.
With cryptocurrency and digital assets being at the intersection of finance and technology, it’s no wonder that it's predominantly a man’s world. However, what’s striking is an observation from Perianne Boring, the Founder and President of blockchain industry group, the Chamber of Digital Commerce. She claimed “The Bitcoin industry has been punished for the lack of women. Women are naturally better communicators and on a mass scale, people don’t understand what Bitcoin is.”
Imagine, if women were welcomed and invited a little more into this space: would more people - both male and female - own crypto, use crypto, and be confident doing so? The answer is undoubtedly yes. It’s time to change the “boys’ club” narrative of the world of crypto for the greater good, and data is showing that we are another step closer to realising this vision.
Written by Izzy Wozencroft, CRM Executive, Wirex
