Despite being less than a month into the new year, crypto has not fared well.
The price of bitcoin, the granddaddy of digital currencies, has fallen roughly 40% from its all-time high, and analysts are preparing for more volatility in the near future.
True believers, however, are not backing down. Although most cryptocurrency traders are young men, research shows a growing number of women are also taking the plunge and preferring to trade cryptocurrency over stocks.
According to NORC at the University of Chicago, 41% of cryptocurrency traders are women, compared to 38% of stock traders.
“Crypto is on sale right now, and if you’re anything like me, you love a good sale,” Randi Zuckerberg, CEO of Zuckerberg Media, told Yahoo Finance Live. “So thank you crypto for this early-in-the-year sale.”
Zuckerberg, sister of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, has been appointed as the first member of OKcoin’s brand advisory council. Zuckerberg’s role will enable OKcoin’s female customer base to grow from 24% to 50% by 2025.
The last 15 years have been filled with uphill battles in tech, where I have consistently been the only woman in the room in most companies, said Zuckerberg. “When I first started getting excited about crypto, I saw it as an opportunity for women to get in on the ground floor.”
When it comes to their overall investment strategy, women are more risk averse than men, so how can you convince women to invest in one of Wall Street’s most volatile assets?
Zuckerberg believes NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are a “fantastic gateway” for women to get into crypto.
“NFTs are a great way to get your feet wet in crypto,” says Randi Zuckberg (left), pictured with OKcoin’s CEO Hong Fang (left). Source: OKcoin.
In terms of cryptocurrency, we often think that the only thing you can do is buy and trade. But what has really drawn me into it is that it does so many of the things that we do naturally in business, such as collectibles, community identity, buying art, buying music, and so forth, that are such a natural extension of what we already do every day,” said Zuckerberg. “For anyone who is new to crypto, NFTs are a great way to learn about the industry.”
Zuckerberg is a “huge” collector of NFTs whose collection is unique because each one was created by a female artist.
OKcoin intends to lead by example by committing $1 million dollars to bringing more women into the cryptocurrency market. Hong Fang, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, is among the 5% of women holding leadership positions in the cryptosphere.
According to Fang, young people, women, and developing nations were the most important growth drivers on the OKcoin platform in 2021, and for the first time since the crypto exchange launched in 2013, there were more long-term holders of crypto than ever before.
According to OKcoin’s “State of the Cryptoverse” report, there was a 436% increase in customers holding bitcoin and a 305% increase in customers holding ethereum (ETH-USD) in 2021.
When you zoom out a little bit to look at the history of crypto, you’ll see that during bull and bear markets, a lot of newcomers left or stayed to become believers,” said Fang. “I think different cycles like this in the market create little windows for people to convert into believers.”
According to Fang, she is working to change the perception that crypto is a male-dominated industry. In my team, as well as among friends I’ve made in the crypto community, there are a lot of female thought leaders and significant female contributors,” she said. “We just need to give [women] a lot more voice to change that perception.”