The rising numbers in the Blockchain universe

Fresh off a flight to Mexico, I walked into a house of 26 women who had spent the last 48 hours together, preparing to compete. These weren’t just any women. These women had been swimming upstream in a man’s world and had no intention of slowing down. These women were strong, tenacious, confident, friendly, and so welcoming to a newcomer like me: a newcomer who wasn’t sure exactly how a hackathon worked. Should we break something?

During a hackathon, you ‘hack’, or innovate, at a marathon pace. Our “hacker house” included female developers at Fortune 500 companies, Ivy League computer science graduates, and directors of blockchain at financial institutions.

This felt like the culmination of two years of exploration into the cryptocurrency and blockchain world, also known as “web 3.” Through a partnership between Blu3 DAO and Polygon, these 27 women were sponsored to compete for over $150,000 in prizes at ETHGlobal in Mexico City. Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, would even speak live in a master class about the future use of the protocol.

There are many different niches in web 3; they are similar and different at the same time. It’s similar to the consumer electronics industry, where you’ll find home theater, pro-av, security, and retail all sharing many of the same vendors and technologies, with minimal event participants. In cryptocurrency, events are either “protocol-based” (ie Bitcoin, Ethereum, Near etc.), or sector-based (decentralized finance, NFTs, metaverse, regenerative finance, decentralized autonomous organizations, games, and more). Many of these events include a hackathon or have many co-located hackathons. At all these events you will find developers, founders, venture capitalists, retail investors, Fortune 500 companies, NFT artists, lawyers, accountants, people dressed in costumes and much more. The balance between these attendee types depends on the niche of the conference or event, and they each have their place to shine.

ETHGlobal was all about innovation on the Ethereum platform, more specifically how we plan to innovate and integrate the next billion users of the Ethereum blockchain. As hackathon participants, we were there to form teams, learn new protocols, build an app, compete for bounties (prize money), tweak, fix, change, pitch and pitch again, in just 38 hours.

So why was I there? Because I had spent two years doing just about anything to understand this blockchain/cryptocurrency/NFT space that you hear about in the media, and curiosity got the best of me. I had gained early exposure to crypto through college friends, but maintained healthy skepticism and a duffle bag full of misconceptions.

Finally, 2020 arrived and we all found ourselves with more downtime than we knew what to do with. Along with pursuing a degree in YouTube gardening, I began exploring the blockchain space. I can confirm that both interests have withstood the test of time.

My first crypto event was the Miami Crypto Experience in 2021. This event was light-hearted, NFT-focused, and pretty much what you might imagine a “crypto event.” Luxury cars were raffled off and workshops were offered on how to make your very own NFT. Although I ultimately left the event convinced that the industry knew what it wanted to be when it grew up, it was there that I realized how welcoming people in web 3 are. It’s really incredible. The night before the conference, I unknowingly ran into NFT/Crypto influencers Kenn Bosak, Miss Teen Crypto, Miggy Crypto and their cohorts, who welcomed me into the evening’s adventure and spent the night answering my many, many questions about what the heck an NFT was actually it.

Fast forward to 2022, I found myself walking around the arenas of ETHDenver. More established than the Miami Crypto Experience, this event featured its own buffalo unicorn mascot, event currency ($SPORK), adjacent DeadMau5 performance, and incredible support from the Colorado government. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. Something akin to a well-established GenZ science fair spreading through downtown Denver. A street filled with food trucks fulfilled orders for eager event attendees, and amazingly, this food, and the huge offering inside, was included free with attendance (which was actually free upon accepted application).

Again, I was warmly welcomed by the web 3 community. New and existing friendships with team members of FiO Protocol, KeepKey, ShapeShift DAO, Mandala and SimpleDeFi allowed me to roam with knowledgeable crypto people and absorb. Once again, I found myself asking many, many questions. After ETHDenver, I was officially confused about cryptocurrency’s journey as an industry, albeit interested like never before.

ETHDenver was an important stop on my web 3 journey because for the first time I spied a group of women roaming around a crypto conference together. There were actually two groups! I took to Instagram to find out what they were all about. I learned that they were the relatively new women’s organizations, HER DAO and Blu3 DAO. DAO is a web 3 term for “decentralized autonomous organization”, i.e. an organization run through a shared mission statement and coded smart contracts. Their basis for existence, benefits, risks and future applications is a separate article. For today, we will leave it at: “a DAO is an organization.” I immediately joined both groups on their chat apps of choice, Discord and Telegram.

Several months later, I found myself riding a scooter through the streets of Austin with five friends from ETHDenver. They drove along to escort me to HER DAO’s womxn event during Consensus, a crypto conference in Texas. Much like being dropped off at an after-school program, they waited patiently in the adjoining restaurant as I cautiously walked into a room full of ultra-smart women. I left the event inspired and excited. When I left, I committed to finding a place to participate in web 3’s female world. I wanted to contribute to this mission of making web3 accessible and inviting to everyone.

In August, an announcement was made by both DAOs. They opened applications for women to compete in Mexico at ETHGlobal. A moment of impostor syndrome and hesitation passed and then I filled out the applications. What was the worst that could happen?

Three weeks later, I was smiling ear to ear on the ETHMexico stage with Blu3 DAO as we celebrated a number of awards and prizes among the teams. Through a partnership with Polygon, Blu3 DAO flew 27 women from around the world to Mexico City. This was an unprecedented amount of female competitors for a previous event. This award is directly attributable to the efforts of both Blu3 DAO and HER DAO.

Electronics, finance, art, transactions, verifications and much more will eventually evolve with the continued innovations in blockchain technology. Buzzwords like “NFT” will be replaced with less provocative words, like “digital certificate” and mobile validation, which mask the underlying blockchain technology from the end consumer.

What will clearly not change? The perseverance of the women in this room who work nights and weekends to ensure that every woman and girl has the opportunity to thrive in the blockchain universe.