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Where are the Women in Crypto and NFTs? · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I don't come to stuff.
0:07
Speaker 1: I never told your protection of I heart Radio. Annie.
0:18
Speaker 1: Before we start this, I need to ask you because
0:22
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about this for a minute and I
0:24
Speaker 1: realized how little I know about all these things. But
0:27
Speaker 1: when did you start actually having a savings account? Oh? I,
0:34
Speaker 1: I guess if we're talking like a traditional at a
0:37
Speaker 1: bank savings account tenth grade, if we're talking about like
0:43
Speaker 1: piggy bank level saving from when I was four years old, right,
0:49
Speaker 1: very much saving money got you? Let me let me
0:51
Speaker 1: talk about investing, so you you kind of figured out
0:54
Speaker 1: about saving money because I did not save money really well,
0:57
Speaker 1: and I truly did not have a good savings accoun
1:00
Speaker 1: out until recently because I was living paycheck by paycheck.
1:04
Speaker 1: But within all of this and some of the things
1:07
Speaker 1: that I've learned through our economic stuff is trying to
1:10
Speaker 1: figure out how to invest in what that means? When
1:14
Speaker 1: did you start learning or have you ever really learned
1:16
Speaker 1: about investing in investments? I started learning in eleventh grade,
1:21
Speaker 1: and I think this is an unfortunate story, but I
1:26
Speaker 1: at the time I loved math um, I loved calculus.
1:30
Speaker 1: But I have been told you're never going to get
1:33
Speaker 1: a man if you're too smart in math. So my
1:37
Speaker 1: in eleventh grade, I had the choice of taking Calculus
1:40
Speaker 1: or math moneyed Management, and I took Math money management
1:44
Speaker 1: because I thought it would be cooler. Um, it was
1:48
Speaker 1: more more women took that class. And I'm not saying
1:51
Speaker 1: that that wasn't useful, because it was. We learned about taxes,
1:55
Speaker 1: and we learned about investing, and we learned about buying
1:57
Speaker 1: a house and all that kind of stuff, but it
1:59
Speaker 1: was just kind of very gendered and weird. Yeah, yeah,
2:03
Speaker 1: for sure. I so that was helpful. I think I probably,
2:08
Speaker 1: and I know you and I discussed this recently. There
2:11
Speaker 1: were a lot of gaps in my knowledge though that
2:13
Speaker 1: have like only very recently been filled. Like we were
2:18
Speaker 1: talking about, I didn't know what the heck was going
2:20
Speaker 1: on with credit scores or like why you got punished,
2:24
Speaker 1: which is a very problematic system. I'm not saying that
2:26
Speaker 1: it's good, but right I didn't even really understand that.
2:31
Speaker 1: And I've definitely had people who are better at finance
2:35
Speaker 1: than me tell me I'm not making the best use
2:40
Speaker 1: of my money as I'm saving, But I kind of
2:42
Speaker 1: hate that whole idea I wish we didn't have to
2:44
Speaker 1: get make our money work for us, quote, just to
2:47
Speaker 1: like retire at a reasonable age and not be living
2:52
Speaker 1: on the edge of poverty. Yeah, And I find that
2:54
Speaker 1: very interesting, especially you talking about those classes, because I've
2:57
Speaker 1: never calculus obviously, but it's never been offered money management class,
3:01
Speaker 1: and I really wish I had. I know, at one
3:04
Speaker 1: point in time, there was a moment where we talked
3:06
Speaker 1: about checkbooks and how to write the check and I
3:09
Speaker 1: thought that was so cool. Now we don't even use
3:12
Speaker 1: them anymore. But essentially like that was the lesson that
3:16
Speaker 1: we learned. And then as I started to go into
3:19
Speaker 1: the work world, I went into of course government and
3:23
Speaker 1: we don't necessarily do stocks. They do the the regular
3:28
Speaker 1: investment that you really don't know what's happening is being
3:30
Speaker 1: matched and you're told is there and I'm like, Coco cold,
3:33
Speaker 1: what is world one? K, I have no idea. And
3:36
Speaker 1: then finding my parents had done all this investment and
3:40
Speaker 1: then the crash that happened and I believe and they
3:43
Speaker 1: lost all of their money and all their retirement. And
3:46
Speaker 1: then coming into this industry where we are connected to
3:50
Speaker 1: a specific brokerage account, investment account or company rather and
3:55
Speaker 1: being told you have to invest in these stocks that
3:57
Speaker 1: are not stable, and I'm very angry. I'm trying to
3:59
Speaker 1: figure why am I having to do this, but being
4:01
Speaker 1: told that if we don't venture out and just do bonds,
4:04
Speaker 1: you might not get any money that you want. Also,
4:07
Speaker 1: bonds can you can also lose money? And I'm like,
4:09
Speaker 1: wait what? So I'm very confused. I'm very angry at
4:13
Speaker 1: the system. That's a whole different thing. But that's the
4:16
Speaker 1: reason I was thinking about all of this. Well, you
4:18
Speaker 1: and I've been talking a little bit about the world
4:21
Speaker 1: of finance and the world of investments, and it's complicated.
4:25
Speaker 1: It's a complicated world and to me, obviously, very freaking confusing.
4:31
Speaker 1: I am so confused. Even after all the research that
4:35
Speaker 1: we have we have done for this episode, I'm still
4:37
Speaker 1: thoroughly confused. I think I know one person more than before.
4:41
Speaker 1: I think it's a common mindset in this conversation, though
4:44
Speaker 1: maybe so so um. But it's a world that hasn't
4:48
Speaker 1: been overly welcoming for others outside of this cys hetero
4:52
Speaker 1: white man. And we know this, but there are those
4:55
Speaker 1: who have been changing that, including this newer world of
4:59
Speaker 1: crypto and in f TS, right right, right, oh boy, okay,
5:07
Speaker 1: so yes, of course we wanted to take a deeper
5:09
Speaker 1: look at women and the world of investing because this
5:12
Speaker 1: is such a big topic of conversation right now. As
5:15
Speaker 1: we said recently, we did venture out to the movie
5:19
Speaker 1: theater and got a good chuckle out of a very
5:21
Speaker 1: dramatic Matt Damon crypto commercial. Right as a fellows the
5:26
Speaker 1: fact that Reese Witherspoon is tweeting about things and putting
5:29
Speaker 1: on Instagram, and then Mila Kuna is talking about her
5:33
Speaker 1: n f T animated stuff. Uh yeah, yeah, it's kind
5:37
Speaker 1: of everywhere right now. But if you're like us and
5:40
Speaker 1: you're a little confused, let's start with some definitions so
5:43
Speaker 1: we can get on the same page here. So, the
5:46
Speaker 1: stock market or stock exchange, as defined by Investipedia it quote,
5:50
Speaker 1: refers to the collection of exchanges and other values where
5:53
Speaker 1: the buying, selling, and issuance of shares of publicly held
5:55
Speaker 1: companies take place. Such financial activities are conducted through institutionalized
6:00
Speaker 1: formal exchanges, whether physical or electronic, are via over the
6:03
Speaker 1: counter OTC marketplaces that operate under a defined set of regulations.
6:09
Speaker 1: And then cryptocurrency according to Investopedia is quote a digital
6:14
Speaker 1: or virtual currency that is secured by cryptography, which makes
6:17
Speaker 1: it nearly impossible to counterfeit or double spend. Many cryptocurrencies
6:21
Speaker 1: are decentralized networks based on blockchain technology, a distributed to
6:24
Speaker 1: leger enforced by a disparate network of computers. A defining
6:28
Speaker 1: feature of cryptocurrencies is that they are generally not issued
6:30
Speaker 1: by any central authority, rendering rendering them theoretically immune to
6:35
Speaker 1: government interference or manipulation, which, by the way, has been changing.
6:40
Speaker 1: Oh not necessarily that the government are part of it,
6:44
Speaker 1: but big corporations and companies are started to buy into it.
6:47
Speaker 1: So that's making it, to me institutionalized, but whatever. And
6:51
Speaker 1: going with that, we kind of wanted to come back
6:53
Speaker 1: to blockchain because I'm like, what is this? Uh? It
6:55
Speaker 1: is a distributed database that is shared among the nodes
6:58
Speaker 1: of computer network. Yes, this is all from investi pedia.
7:02
Speaker 1: So if you're wondering, because I'm like, it keeps popping up,
7:04
Speaker 1: they seem to know a lot. Okay, cool cool cool um.
7:07
Speaker 1: As a database, a block chain stores information electronically in
7:11
Speaker 1: digital format. Blockchains are best known for the crucial role
7:15
Speaker 1: in cryptocurrency systems such as a bitcoin, for maintaining a
7:19
Speaker 1: secure and decentralized record of transactions. The innovation with the
7:23
Speaker 1: blockchain is that it guarantees the fidelity and security of
7:26
Speaker 1: a record of data and generates trust without the need
7:29
Speaker 1: of a trusted third party. And apparently anyone commit one.
7:34
Speaker 1: Well it's kind of weird. Yeah, it's according to how
7:36
Speaker 1: you do it. This is why we have some random
7:38
Speaker 1: like cat coins and dot poins and I don't understand.
7:41
Speaker 1: So then there's also defy, which I had to come
7:43
Speaker 1: back to us. What is this which is uh decentralized
7:47
Speaker 1: finance and is quote an emerging financial technology based on
7:51
Speaker 1: secure distributed A ledgers similar to those used by cryptocurrencies.
7:56
Speaker 1: The system removes the control banks and institutions have on money,
8:00
Speaker 1: financial products, and financial services. So all of this is
8:03
Speaker 1: supposed to be for cryptocurrencies that we can do it
8:06
Speaker 1: as a community without institutions, putting it simply. And then
8:10
Speaker 1: we're also going to talk about in f t s
8:13
Speaker 1: or non fungible tokens, which are quote cryptographic assets on
8:19
Speaker 1: a blockchain with a unique identification codes and metadata that
8:23
Speaker 1: distinguished them from each other. Unlike cryptocurrencies, they cannot be
8:27
Speaker 1: traded or exchanged at equivalency. This differs from fungible tokens
8:33
Speaker 1: like cryptocurrencies, which are identical to each other and therefore
8:37
Speaker 1: can be used as a medium for commercial transactions. Yes, yes,
8:43
Speaker 1: there was an S n L sketch for a while
8:45
Speaker 1: back for Pete Davison did it. He does these parodies
8:49
Speaker 1: of M and M videos, and he did one on
8:51
Speaker 1: n F T S and funnily enough, I've never heard
8:53
Speaker 1: the original song. I've only heard this parody, but it's
8:56
Speaker 1: been stuck in my head entire I am them trying
9:00
Speaker 1: to win n F D S. But okay, because we
9:04
Speaker 1: like to be thorough, let's do a bit of a
9:05
Speaker 1: history lesson. The first noted stock market or exchange was
9:09
Speaker 1: established in the sixteen hundreds in Amsterdam, with the Dutch
9:11
Speaker 1: East India Company as the first publicly traded company UM,
9:15
Speaker 1: and it didn't come to the US until the seventeen
9:17
Speaker 1: hundreds through the Buttonwood Trade Agreement, which would later be
9:21
Speaker 1: formed to be the New York Stock Exchange. Of course,
9:25
Speaker 1: there were an arm any twist in turns with the
9:27
Speaker 1: stock exchange and market, which was handled by men, of course,
9:31
Speaker 1: including several crashes, including just recently due to the coronavirus
9:37
Speaker 1: and bt dubs. The first woman to ever be part
9:40
Speaker 1: of the n y s E the New York Stock
9:42
Speaker 1: Exchange was a Muriel Mickey Siebert who was known as
9:46
Speaker 1: the first woman of Finance, and she made her way
9:49
Speaker 1: into the Covenant n y s E after being tired
9:51
Speaker 1: of not making as much money as the men around her,
9:55
Speaker 1: and she bought herself a seat with them thanks to
9:57
Speaker 1: the advice of her investor friend, which was like out,
10:00
Speaker 1: I make more money, um, and she was able to
10:02
Speaker 1: do so after finding a sponsor to help her apply
10:04
Speaker 1: for a siege, which by the way, took ten different
10:07
Speaker 1: asks before she got it yes, and having to receive
10:10
Speaker 1: a loan from a major bank which took two years
10:13
Speaker 1: for her to get and on December twenty eight, nineteen
10:15
Speaker 1: sixty seven, she got a seat um and she remained
10:18
Speaker 1: the only woman to be on the Stock Exchange for
10:20
Speaker 1: the next ten years. She would later become the first
10:24
Speaker 1: female New York Superintendent of Banking in nineteen seventy seven.
10:28
Speaker 1: And the concept of digital money has been around for
10:31
Speaker 1: a little while now, but the currency that most people
10:34
Speaker 1: recognize is cryptocurrency and many experts, shall we say, point
10:38
Speaker 1: to Bitcoin is the first established cryptocurrency, and the history
10:43
Speaker 1: of bitcoin is kind of uncertain. Apparently, Bitcoin, or like
10:46
Speaker 1: the idea of bitcoin, was written about in two thousand
10:49
Speaker 1: and eight by someone using the pseudonym of Satashi Nakamoto,
10:53
Speaker 1: who was thought to be a programmer or maybe a
10:56
Speaker 1: group of programmers. It was first created in two thousand nine,
10:59
Speaker 1: though bitcoin and was the only crypto for the first
11:02
Speaker 1: couple of years, and the it was known and was
11:05
Speaker 1: being used for some things. It was only worth a
11:07
Speaker 1: few cents and initially crashed. However, in it was worth
11:12
Speaker 1: so much more. And I had a friend, I think
11:15
Speaker 1: a lot of us have this friend who was in it.
11:17
Speaker 1: At the beginning, we were all kind of like mmmm,
11:20
Speaker 1: and then he ended up making a lot of money. Yeah,
11:23
Speaker 1: I don't know if he did. So I had to
11:24
Speaker 1: come back and ask because he used to get onto
11:27
Speaker 1: us and twenties things like you need to buy you
11:30
Speaker 1: need to buy my bots on my boss and of
11:31
Speaker 1: course they're like a few cents. At that point We're
11:33
Speaker 1: like okay, cool, cool, cool. And then last year I
11:36
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, what is worth like ten
11:38
Speaker 1: thousand dollars? And I was like wait what, And so
11:40
Speaker 1: I never did find out. Yeah, yeah, well I don't
11:44
Speaker 1: know in this case where my friend ultimately ended up,
11:47
Speaker 1: but I know for a while he was riding high
11:50
Speaker 1: and made a lot of money and we were all
11:52
Speaker 1: kind of like, oh wow, okay um. And one of
11:56
Speaker 1: bitcoin's appeals was the peer to peer aspect of decentralized
12:01
Speaker 1: networking that was supposed to be outside of government control.
12:04
Speaker 1: Really interesting two parter from Behind the Bastards that you
12:07
Speaker 1: can check out to learn more about that. Yeah, it
12:10
Speaker 1: was quite funny to listen to them read it from
12:14
Speaker 1: uh y'all. I just I listened to those episodes and
12:17
Speaker 1: I still don't know what's happening. I'm gonna put that
12:19
Speaker 1: out there. So cryptocurrency continues to grow. As of this
12:23
Speaker 1: month January two. Just in case you were wondering, there
12:26
Speaker 1: are more than eight thousand types of crypto. Y'all. Remember
12:29
Speaker 1: dose coins, which apparently is still a thing, And though
12:31
Speaker 1: the value isn't supposed to be affected by the stock
12:34
Speaker 1: exchange recent it is, it seems like it's being affected
12:38
Speaker 1: because a lot of the stock has gone down recently,
12:40
Speaker 1: so has the value of some of the cryptocurrency. So
12:42
Speaker 1: it makes me wonder it doesn't really not mur murmur,
12:59
Speaker 1: So how did n f T s become a thing?
13:02
Speaker 1: So we want to go ahead and jump right into
13:05
Speaker 1: Andy and I have talked about off Mike. This crypto,
13:10
Speaker 1: n f T and other new digital investments are things
13:13
Speaker 1: we may know as a concept, but we have a
13:16
Speaker 1: hard time explaining. And even the concept still kind of
13:19
Speaker 1: flies over my head. Uh yeah, actually again for me,
13:23
Speaker 1: the pragmatist and fairly literal in everything, I've had to
13:27
Speaker 1: explain to me a lot I listened to these episodes.
13:30
Speaker 1: I'm still really confused to what the hell is happening here.
13:33
Speaker 1: But okay, I'm gonna trying to give you some background
13:36
Speaker 1: on it as we've researched it. I like that I
13:41
Speaker 1: set it up pretty much just like, yeah, you might not,
13:44
Speaker 1: we may not have this right, sorry, but this is
13:47
Speaker 1: what we read. So one of the bigger slash new
13:50
Speaker 1: er cryptocurrencies is Ethereum. Weirdly I have invested in Uh,
13:54
Speaker 1: it doesn't look so good today, not a lot. I
13:56
Speaker 1: didn't put a lot of money in it, but I
13:58
Speaker 1: was like, okay, why not? Which offers a more quote
14:01
Speaker 1: versatile platform according to a Forbes article, and this allows
14:05
Speaker 1: for something called smart contracts, which are codes that are
14:08
Speaker 1: a quote connected to a digital asset that confirms the
14:12
Speaker 1: asset as individually, unique, traceable, and verifiable. Again, this is
14:17
Speaker 1: from Forbes, and this is all supposed to be unhackable
14:21
Speaker 1: and can't be replicated completely one of a kind. And
14:25
Speaker 1: the n f T s are attached to some of
14:27
Speaker 1: these smart contracts. And to put it simply quote, the
14:31
Speaker 1: new monetary system is crypto, and then n f t
14:33
Speaker 1: s are digital goods you buy with that crypto, typically
14:38
Speaker 1: with ethereum. Okay, okay, well, um, when did n f
14:44
Speaker 1: T s start popping up? Um? We thought the origins
14:47
Speaker 1: would be fairly easy to find since it is all
14:49
Speaker 1: based on data and the interwebs, But it seems that
14:53
Speaker 1: maybe we aren't asking the question correctly. According to different
14:59
Speaker 1: sites and blogs, there are different lists and first one
15:02
Speaker 1: first is the first minted n FT token which was
15:05
Speaker 1: created in but only just sold in one for the
15:10
Speaker 1: amount of one point for million dollars, created by Kevin
15:14
Speaker 1: McCoy um, and it was called Quantum. Then we have
15:18
Speaker 1: Curio cards, which are claimed to be the first n
15:21
Speaker 1: f T art project on the Ethereum blockchain, which was
15:25
Speaker 1: minted in May and this series consists of thirty different
15:29
Speaker 1: and unique collectible cards have been done by seven different artists.
15:33
Speaker 1: Today they are over twenty nine thousand cards of all
15:37
Speaker 1: different levels of value, and not surprisingly, the majority of
15:41
Speaker 1: the top sellers and artists in the n f T
15:44
Speaker 1: market ar men, with the highest selling one valued and
15:47
Speaker 1: sold for ninety one point eight million dollars um. And
15:51
Speaker 1: it's sold in December one. And that leads us to
15:55
Speaker 1: the question, where are the women in non binary people
15:59
Speaker 1: in this new market. Well, it's probably not shocking that
16:03
Speaker 1: the amount of women in this industry is fairly low,
16:06
Speaker 1: especially when we already know the level of sexism and
16:09
Speaker 1: limitations on women in the tech industry as well as
16:12
Speaker 1: the art industry. And by the way, in the fine
16:14
Speaker 1: arts world in auctions, only two percent of the ninety
16:18
Speaker 1: six point six billion dollars in the total of seals
16:21
Speaker 1: for this art were made by women. So got that money?
16:27
Speaker 1: Um And this was between the years of two eight
16:29
Speaker 1: and twenty nineteen. So my gosh. And though the number
16:33
Speaker 1: of women that are made public so far, because there's
16:36
Speaker 1: several of the people in the artists that we don't
16:38
Speaker 1: know their gender, just so you know. But in the
16:41
Speaker 1: world of n f T s are low, is still
16:43
Speaker 1: higher than the fine arts world, but that higher is
16:47
Speaker 1: only six of the n f T cells. Then that's
16:50
Speaker 1: as of November one, so maybe the numbers have changed.
16:53
Speaker 1: And if you're wondering, the only woman to crack the
16:56
Speaker 1: top ten artists by sales of n f T is
16:58
Speaker 1: musician Grimes, who sold eight point nine million dollars in
17:03
Speaker 1: n f T cells um and the second woman to
17:06
Speaker 1: make into anywhere in this list comes at fifty, with
17:09
Speaker 1: a total cell of one point six million for her collection.
17:13
Speaker 1: Wow wow, wow, wow. I feel like I just started
17:15
Speaker 1: hearing about this two years ago, so this is all
17:18
Speaker 1: I'm kind of surprised it's been around longer than that.
17:20
Speaker 1: But yeah, I honestly think I've only heard of it
17:23
Speaker 1: in this last year. I don't think I was paying attention,
17:25
Speaker 1: and I was trying to figure out what these apes
17:26
Speaker 1: which are all over the Twitter PfP profile picks seriously
17:34
Speaker 1: that I was like, what is happening? And maybe that's
17:37
Speaker 1: why I'm so it's so hard for me to grasp yes, yes, yes,
17:41
Speaker 1: well again, I do not think we are alone. It's
17:43
Speaker 1: kind of a running joke, okay, but there are groups
17:46
Speaker 1: and artists who are looking to make a change in
17:49
Speaker 1: this field. Groups like Women in Blockchain Talks and projects
17:53
Speaker 1: like World of Women in FT are coming out to
17:56
Speaker 1: try to make space for women in this industry. Different
17:59
Speaker 1: project It's like the World of Women have a unique
18:01
Speaker 1: collection created by different women in the arts and UM
18:05
Speaker 1: they elevate what they are doing. Other projects like Women
18:11
Speaker 1: Rise of over ten thousand n f t s that
18:13
Speaker 1: feature women in the arts, activism, coding, and science, with
18:16
Speaker 1: a mission that states they seek to quote watch women
18:19
Speaker 1: rise on the blockchain UM. And that's according to coin
18:23
Speaker 1: telegraph dot com artists Milia Abdi Um and I'm hope,
18:26
Speaker 1: I hope I'm not butchering that completely, but please let
18:29
Speaker 1: me know if I am so I can correct it. Um,
18:31
Speaker 1: who was interviewed for the same article, stated of Women
18:35
Speaker 1: Rise in her experience in n f t S quote,
18:37
Speaker 1: I wanted to make sure that I was starting my
18:38
Speaker 1: journey in n f t S by celebrating real world
18:40
Speaker 1: women around the world. This project isn't just about ethnic diversity,
18:44
Speaker 1: but it's also about cultural diversity, religious diversity, and diversity
18:48
Speaker 1: in the terms of fields where women are breaking the
18:50
Speaker 1: glass ceiling. It's also an extension of the work I've
18:53
Speaker 1: been doing over the last nine years. And she's not
18:57
Speaker 1: the only one who wishes to push these type of
19:00
Speaker 1: ideals around diversity in the world of n f T s.
19:04
Speaker 1: Creator of Boss Beauties, another n f T project, Lisa Mayor,
19:08
Speaker 1: came in wanting to not only change the sexism within
19:11
Speaker 1: the newly growing industry, but also bring her passion of
19:14
Speaker 1: women's rights within the digital and media world. Her project,
19:18
Speaker 1: Boss Beauties featured a collection of over ten thousand different
19:21
Speaker 1: portraits of strong women in different careers. She stayed about
19:24
Speaker 1: the project, quote, there are women astronauts, women in stem, doctors,
19:28
Speaker 1: race car drivers, and more. The promise here is that
19:30
Speaker 1: all the traits mixed together show that a woman can
19:33
Speaker 1: be anything she wants. The entire collection sold in less
19:36
Speaker 1: than ninety minutes, which also helps her small business, allowing
19:39
Speaker 1: business to keep going during the pandemic. So that's awesome. Yeah. Also,
19:44
Speaker 1: Mayor stated that one of their n f T s
19:46
Speaker 1: was displayed at the n y C outside of the
19:48
Speaker 1: Murial Sea Bert Boardroom, who we mentioned earlier and apparently
19:53
Speaker 1: is the first n f D to be displayed there.
19:56
Speaker 1: So I haven't gotten a confirmation, but that's what she stated.
19:59
Speaker 1: But with all of the good stuff, we do want
20:00
Speaker 1: to take a minute to talk about how one group
20:02
Speaker 1: took advantage of those who are really thirsty to support
20:06
Speaker 1: women in this industry. Apparently last year an n f
20:09
Speaker 1: T group I guess our collection, known as Famous Lady Squad,
20:13
Speaker 1: had a giant controversy as his collective, which was supposedly
20:18
Speaker 1: run by three women, had earned one point five million
20:21
Speaker 1: dollars from investors turns out to be ran by Russian men,
20:25
Speaker 1: and after a lengthy investigation by others in the community,
20:28
Speaker 1: they were outed. They did apologize. We're like, oh sorry,
20:32
Speaker 1: we didn't think it'd be a big deal, but they
20:34
Speaker 1: absolutely were trying to I think they I guess the
20:38
Speaker 1: best way I can put his own the American lives
20:41
Speaker 1: in their budeness, but also trying to take advantage and
20:44
Speaker 1: get that money. And though it was a slab in
20:47
Speaker 1: the face for those who did support the team, the
20:50
Speaker 1: men did give control of the actual collective to a woman,
20:55
Speaker 1: Ashley Smith, who is a Canadian real estate agent, I believe,
20:58
Speaker 1: and they did donate some of the money a two
21:00
Speaker 1: different women driven in FT groups, So they did have
21:04
Speaker 1: a happy err story, but definitely. Yeah, I've seen this
21:08
Speaker 1: not only in this type of field, but we know
21:12
Speaker 1: when it comes to like black businesses and black owned businesses,
21:15
Speaker 1: we've had people tried to capitalize on that. Super gross
21:19
Speaker 1: but still um And this is definitely one of those
21:22
Speaker 1: investment platforms that could be different from others which oftentimes
21:25
Speaker 1: won't allow space for women in the same build. So
21:28
Speaker 1: we're really hoping to see some change and hopefully will
21:30
Speaker 1: come quickly even though they have been around for about
21:32
Speaker 1: seven years, I guess. But it doesn't mean it has
21:35
Speaker 1: to go down the same route as other sexist limitations
21:39
Speaker 1: in these types of platforms. So yeah, I mean that's
21:42
Speaker 1: the hopeful and exciting part of a new thing, is
21:46
Speaker 1: there's that, yeah, that hope that you could not follow
21:49
Speaker 1: the past of similar industries before you, but fortunately so
21:53
Speaker 1: often it seems like it does. Yeah. And also part
21:58
Speaker 1: of this is it can quite lucrative. As we've been
22:01
Speaker 1: saying these numbers, people can make a lot of money,
22:04
Speaker 1: but you know, we're not really seeing women in this
22:08
Speaker 1: money making space in large numbers right now. As in fact,
22:13
Speaker 1: cryptocurrency has been seen more as a man's world, even
22:16
Speaker 1: to the point that we make jokes about those crypto brows.
22:19
Speaker 1: According to a CNBC and Acorn survey, there are twice
22:23
Speaker 1: the amount of men than women who are invested in cryptocurrency,
22:27
Speaker 1: and they broke down the numbers even more, showing that
22:29
Speaker 1: the gender disparities of cryptocurrency quote matches or exceeds the
22:34
Speaker 1: gender gap of other more traditional investing and according to
22:37
Speaker 1: the one State of US Crypto report, that of the
22:41
Speaker 1: crypto holders are men, which she has no surprise. Unfortunately,
22:48
Speaker 1: there are some good news. The racial aspects are more
22:50
Speaker 1: equal in the crypto investments, with the numbers showing eleven
22:55
Speaker 1: of white people, even percent of Black people, ten of Hispanics,
22:59
Speaker 1: four percent of Asian people, and of another race being involved. Right.
23:06
Speaker 1: And However, with these numbers, it's not surprising that black women,
23:11
Speaker 1: part of the intersectional level, are more likely to have
23:14
Speaker 1: barriers when it comes to investing, even in the cryptocurrency.
23:18
Speaker 1: Whether it has to do with the decades slash centuries
23:21
Speaker 1: long practices of excluding black women when it comes to loans,
23:24
Speaker 1: home ownerships, credit credit cards, expendable cash, or just the
23:28
Speaker 1: overall ability to learn how to invest in such a
23:31
Speaker 1: very confusing I will test system, black women are often
23:36
Speaker 1: left behind in the narrative altogether, and the ability to
23:40
Speaker 1: take a chance in this new wave of investing has
23:42
Speaker 1: been lacking for many women, with the same survey we
23:44
Speaker 1: talked about earlier showing only nineteen percent of the investors
23:47
Speaker 1: are white women and only four percent are black women.
23:50
Speaker 1: So that's something to think on too. But there are
23:53
Speaker 1: those who seek again to change things YEA. Organizations like Comorobi,
23:58
Speaker 1: collective founded by women men in the blockchain space to
24:01
Speaker 1: invest exclusively in quote exceptional female and non binary crypto founders,
24:07
Speaker 1: seek to improve diversity in the crypto sphere. The crypto
24:11
Speaker 1: industry has made vast amounts of money in one alone,
24:15
Speaker 1: up to trillions in dollars, and collectives like these want
24:20
Speaker 1: to ensure that women and non binary folks are a
24:22
Speaker 1: part of making these giant profits. And women like Julia Rosenberg,
24:27
Speaker 1: another founder of a blockchain company, wants to not only
24:30
Speaker 1: see women being investors, but also being a part of
24:33
Speaker 1: the growing community of workers. After seeing how little women
24:36
Speaker 1: are a part of this industry, she sought to hire
24:39
Speaker 1: and recruit more women within the technical side, and she
24:43
Speaker 1: isn't the only one, Thank goodness, their organizations like she
24:46
Speaker 1: fi women in blockchain National Policy Network of Women of
24:49
Speaker 1: Color and blockchain and more um that are seeking to
24:53
Speaker 1: change this this boys club that it is right now
24:56
Speaker 1: and to a well run diverse machine. So much research
25:00
Speaker 1: has shown that diverse and inclusive teams make more profits
25:05
Speaker 1: in any field and just in general, are more efficient.
25:09
Speaker 1: According to a study completed by the National Center for
25:12
Speaker 1: Women and Information Technology quote, diverse teams that tend to
25:16
Speaker 1: stay on schedule and under budget demonstrate superior team dynamics
25:20
Speaker 1: and make more money. And the other side of that
25:23
Speaker 1: is allowing space for women to learn about investment and
25:27
Speaker 1: being educated to these types of opportunities. Organizations like she
25:31
Speaker 1: FI aim to educate women and how to borrow invest
25:34
Speaker 1: in trade cryptocurrency, opening up the door for women to
25:37
Speaker 1: be part of the growing trade. Also, when talking about
25:40
Speaker 1: teaching women about these types of investment classes, it was
25:43
Speaker 1: mentioned and I thought it was important for us to
25:44
Speaker 1: know that many of the women would start off apologizing
25:48
Speaker 1: before actually talking about money, which is something we've talked
25:51
Speaker 1: about before. Just this whole concept that talking about money
25:55
Speaker 1: is not ladylike and we shouldn't be doing it, and
25:58
Speaker 1: that women are so hush high when it comes to
26:02
Speaker 1: making money, wanting to make money and growing professionally. That
26:05
Speaker 1: seems to be a bad thing that we often see
26:08
Speaker 1: being portrayed and so literally, this specific firm talked about
26:13
Speaker 1: how she had to stop them from like I'm so sorry,
26:15
Speaker 1: I just don't understand and be like stop that, that's
26:18
Speaker 1: not your fault. And I found that that was something
26:20
Speaker 1: we should mention because I feel like it happens too
26:22
Speaker 1: much and we should stop. Yeah. Yeah, And I think
26:26
Speaker 1: we touched on that a little with the whole Black
26:29
Speaker 1: Widow Scott Johnson Disney thing, where they basically we're like, hey,
26:34
Speaker 1: lady here being greedy during a pandemic. You terrible person
26:38
Speaker 1: asking for money. Um, it's that kind of mindset where
26:42
Speaker 1: we feel, yeah, it was we all we talked about
26:45
Speaker 1: recently to the what you're worth and asking for what
26:47
Speaker 1: you're worth and being shut down like that. However, though
27:04
Speaker 1: there is a lot to be said about the new investing,
27:06
Speaker 1: we couldn't talk about all of this without addressing the
27:08
Speaker 1: environmental implications of cryptocurrency, which is something I did not
27:11
Speaker 1: know about. And please note, yes we're not experts on
27:15
Speaker 1: this um, but more curious on how women are viewed
27:17
Speaker 1: in these spaces and the effects of this type of investment,
27:20
Speaker 1: but this is an important part of the conversation. The
27:23
Speaker 1: environmental impact of crypto as it is is not great
27:28
Speaker 1: because many of the cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, are based on mining.
27:32
Speaker 1: A lot of electricity is used to do that mining,
27:34
Speaker 1: and since Bitcoin was originally released, it has become harder
27:37
Speaker 1: to get new ones, as it was designed to be
27:39
Speaker 1: somewhat scarce um to up its value. Partially, the worth
27:43
Speaker 1: of one bitcoin as of earlier this month, this month
27:46
Speaker 1: being January two is forty two thousan dollars and the
27:50
Speaker 1: value of a newly mined block is six point two
27:53
Speaker 1: five bitcoin. Lots of money. Yes, I had to do
27:58
Speaker 1: the math in my head for a second. And because
28:00
Speaker 1: of this, more people are trying to mind to get
28:02
Speaker 1: what's left, which means using more electricity. And one report,
28:05
Speaker 1: it says quote the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, estimates
28:09
Speaker 1: that bitcoin mining uses more power globally per year than
28:12
Speaker 1: some countries including the Netherlands and Pakistan. And it isn't
28:16
Speaker 1: just the act of mining for bitcoins, but actually to
28:20
Speaker 1: use it for in transactions. According to that same report,
28:24
Speaker 1: is estimated to burn two thousand, two point five kilo
28:27
Speaker 1: watt hours of electricity, which is enough to power US
28:31
Speaker 1: household for almost eighty days eight days. Uh, and that's
28:36
Speaker 1: a large carbon footprint. And for those of us in
28:39
Speaker 1: the US, well, it seems of the mining is done
28:42
Speaker 1: here and guess what, we use a lot of fossil
28:45
Speaker 1: fuels to get it done. And of course this also
28:48
Speaker 1: includes the fact that different power plants that are used
28:51
Speaker 1: for mining draw millions of gallons of waters to cool
28:54
Speaker 1: down the plants after using so much energy, and some
28:58
Speaker 1: of that discharge goes into the body of waters that
29:00
Speaker 1: typically will endanger the wildlife there. But with that, there
29:05
Speaker 1: are some companies out there that are trying to use
29:07
Speaker 1: more green and I'm putting this in quotes because I
29:09
Speaker 1: don't know what that means typically for a given company.
29:13
Speaker 1: So put that there green methods in the crypto space,
29:17
Speaker 1: such as using different ways of systems of validations which
29:21
Speaker 1: may reduce energy costs as and they don't want to
29:23
Speaker 1: use the older system which was proof of work meaning uh,
29:27
Speaker 1: they measured it by the amount of digging slash mining
29:29
Speaker 1: slash work they did, which obviously is going to drive
29:32
Speaker 1: up the use of electricity. There were also organizations that
29:35
Speaker 1: are trying to start initiatives that would find ways of
29:38
Speaker 1: running blockchains on entirely renewable energy and hoping to do
29:42
Speaker 1: so by Apparently there are some who are currently using
29:46
Speaker 1: renewable energy to run it already, but the numbers are
29:50
Speaker 1: hard to find, so we don't know how many companies
29:52
Speaker 1: and who is using what I feel like this might
29:55
Speaker 1: be one of those misleading Hey, look we're doing good
30:00
Speaker 1: as the big corporation. So that's editorial. That's just my opinion.
30:05
Speaker 1: So because again not a lot of information. Of course,
30:09
Speaker 1: we aren't sure how effective and how much effort are
30:11
Speaker 1: actually being made, especially if it has the chance of
30:14
Speaker 1: affecting someone's effort and making money. So we know there's
30:18
Speaker 1: a lot of we said when it comes to money
30:20
Speaker 1: and greed and profit, but we're gonna keep our eyes
30:22
Speaker 1: on it and hopefully maybe this is something that not
30:25
Speaker 1: only will women be welcomed into, but we can do
30:28
Speaker 1: it sustainably. Yeah. Anyway, but the world of investing in
30:34
Speaker 1: finance is fascinating and things like n f t s
30:37
Speaker 1: and cryptos have been big conversations in the world of
30:40
Speaker 1: social media, and again just being relevant, like I said,
30:43
Speaker 1: we've seen so many celebrities and big wigs talking about
30:48
Speaker 1: their special n f T s. Jimmy Fallon in Paris,
30:51
Speaker 1: Hilton sitting there comparing their n f T s by
30:53
Speaker 1: the way, which we're from the board Ape yacht Club,
30:56
Speaker 1: which if you've seen them, it's just an ape with
30:58
Speaker 1: different costumes on which, by the way, Uh, the one
31:03
Speaker 1: I think Jimmy Fallon was referring to what she got
31:06
Speaker 1: was two thousand dollars. Again, it's not something they don't
31:12
Speaker 1: I don't get it. I don't get it. And I've
31:14
Speaker 1: seen that Twitter has been again advertising to allow those
31:19
Speaker 1: spaces and usage in Twitter. So I'm guessing it's the
31:23
Speaker 1: profile pictures, which I don't understand. I thought you could
31:26
Speaker 1: do that. I don't get it. And then that is specifics.
31:30
Speaker 1: I know there was some disasters where people are replicating
31:33
Speaker 1: or not getting what they are promised. There's something called
31:36
Speaker 1: the fat finger mistake, which I feel like it's fat
31:38
Speaker 1: phobic and I don't like it. I'm sure it is,
31:41
Speaker 1: And there has been also conversation within the art world
31:43
Speaker 1: how some of it is really ablest and super problematic
31:48
Speaker 1: and what they're featuring, but like people who are being
31:51
Speaker 1: scammed to buy these things, and then yeah, and then yeah,
31:57
Speaker 1: like so many different things, So it's interesting. It is,
32:03
Speaker 1: but the stock exchange is still the largest investment platform today,
32:08
Speaker 1: and with the fact that it took so long for
32:10
Speaker 1: a woman to even be able to buy a seat there,
32:13
Speaker 1: there is still a shortage of women in that space.
32:15
Speaker 1: According to a survey completed by nerd Wallet in September one,
32:20
Speaker 1: only of women are invested in the stock market, compared
32:24
Speaker 1: to sixty six percent of men who were invested. One
32:27
Speaker 1: of the reasons cited was quote women tend to be
32:30
Speaker 1: less confident more anxious than men about investing, which we
32:34
Speaker 1: found interesting and really says a lot. Uh. The article
32:37
Speaker 1: states that quote emotions around money and investing can be fraught.
32:40
Speaker 1: In the survey found differences in how men and women
32:42
Speaker 1: feel when thinking about investing. While men are more likely
32:45
Speaker 1: to feel confident than women versus, women are more likely
32:50
Speaker 1: to say they feel anxious than men versus. And that
32:54
Speaker 1: is definitely me. I feel anxious. I don't like to
32:59
Speaker 1: But is that Many say that women make better investors
33:02
Speaker 1: than men. According to a report completed by Fidelity, in
33:07
Speaker 1: over a ten year period, it's female customers earned on
33:09
Speaker 1: average point four percentage points more annually than their male
33:13
Speaker 1: counterparts that may not see Michael lot, but over a
33:16
Speaker 1: few decades it can add up to tens of thousands
33:18
Speaker 1: of dollars or more. Right so, Fidelities analysis shows that
33:23
Speaker 1: from two thousand eleven to twenty, which included five point
33:27
Speaker 1: two million customers in this analysis, the women are able
33:30
Speaker 1: to get better returns due to the way they trade,
33:34
Speaker 1: or more so on how they don't. Women that are
33:37
Speaker 1: customers of Fidelity quote bought and sold half as much
33:40
Speaker 1: as male customers. And Fidelity wasn't the only one to
33:44
Speaker 1: get similar results. Other financial companies showed similar patterns in
33:47
Speaker 1: long term trading and investments. And again the part of
33:51
Speaker 1: the reason why women might not be trading them as
33:54
Speaker 1: much because of anxiety and less confidence. Uh and it
33:59
Speaker 1: may be because of the overall good results from women
34:01
Speaker 1: that women have been investing more recently, another Fidelity reports
34:05
Speaker 1: showed that almost sixty seven percent of women are investing
34:08
Speaker 1: outside of retirement accounts, which is of retirement acounts is
34:12
Speaker 1: what bothers me. It makes me not want to invest
34:14
Speaker 1: in other stocks. You know, that's my anxiety that I
34:19
Speaker 1: don't like again, which is a forty four percent increase
34:22
Speaker 1: since twenty eighteen, and I did see another article talk
34:25
Speaker 1: about how the pandemic. During the pandemic, women are investing more.
34:30
Speaker 1: From that so, I found that interesting and different brokerages
34:33
Speaker 1: have seen an increase in women investors as well, with
34:35
Speaker 1: one platform showing that women investors tripled in the last year,
34:39
Speaker 1: so much so that many of the brokerages are pushing
34:42
Speaker 1: more focused on women as new clients and investors. And
34:46
Speaker 1: there's even a platform like Elvest which is focusing completely
34:50
Speaker 1: on women investors altogether. And though women investors are rising,
34:55
Speaker 1: it seems actually working in the field is still dominated
34:58
Speaker 1: by men. Part of that could be due to the
35:01
Speaker 1: fact that men rise faster in these job fields. According
35:04
Speaker 1: to another Investipdia report, there are only four point nine
35:07
Speaker 1: percent female partners in the venture capital firms. Less than
35:10
Speaker 1: ten percent of senior roles are held by women in
35:12
Speaker 1: the private equity field. But we know there are groups
35:15
Speaker 1: and initiatives trying to open up the field for more
35:18
Speaker 1: women in the business. And let's hope that as they
35:23
Speaker 1: see women have value investing and have value in the
35:26
Speaker 1: world of investing, they will value women enough to help
35:31
Speaker 1: bust this ceiling within the investment career field. I found
35:36
Speaker 1: it all very interesting as we were doing all of
35:38
Speaker 1: this research, the level of like yeah, women, wait, women,
35:43
Speaker 1: and we had like, there's one specific article, the one
35:45
Speaker 1: we were mentioning where they talked about the fidelity results
35:49
Speaker 1: in that women may be better investors. The title baby
35:51
Speaker 1: laugh because it was a dude. It was like, let
35:53
Speaker 1: me man explain to you while women do better. And
35:56
Speaker 1: there's been so many other articles like women overall, especially
35:59
Speaker 1: in the last twenty years, have really shown that they
36:03
Speaker 1: by not trading around, that they have done a better job.
36:07
Speaker 1: And maybe that kind of goes back to the whole like,
36:09
Speaker 1: let us sit. You're not supposed to pull it out
36:11
Speaker 1: these certain times. This is the small things that I know.
36:14
Speaker 1: And I found that very interesting because every time I
36:16
Speaker 1: see it dip, I'm look, I gotta take it out.
36:17
Speaker 1: I gotta pull it out, which means it's a loss
36:19
Speaker 1: of money. Of course I'm gonna do that because I'm
36:22
Speaker 1: too anxious to do such a radical move. But yeah,
36:26
Speaker 1: it does say a lot to who is making money
36:29
Speaker 1: off of that as well, because this whole racket in
36:32
Speaker 1: the stock investment I don't understand. I do feel like
36:35
Speaker 1: someone's trying to take advantage of me because I'm giving
36:38
Speaker 1: money to hope that I can retire in time, which
36:41
Speaker 1: I hate that process. And yeah, with the n f
36:44
Speaker 1: T s, there's more and more art being sold out there.
36:47
Speaker 1: There's a group of black women who are doing photography.
36:51
Speaker 1: There was someone talking about selling podcasts sounds on and
36:55
Speaker 1: TikTok sounds as n f T s essentially because there's
36:59
Speaker 1: this whole idea like you'll never have it, but you
37:01
Speaker 1: will own a share of it and it's unique to you,
37:04
Speaker 1: which I am still very confused by whatever whatnot. No
37:08
Speaker 1: matter what, I do want to see women make headway
37:12
Speaker 1: and make it in these industries, but not at the
37:14
Speaker 1: expense of our environment. Yeah. Yeah, And I think there's
37:20
Speaker 1: a lot of things that frustrate me about this. I
37:22
Speaker 1: think that it shouldn't be so complicated too. Again, just retire.
37:26
Speaker 1: I got mad about taxes the other day. I was like,
37:28
Speaker 1: this is ridiculous and I can't understand this and I
37:31
Speaker 1: have to get somebody to do it. Um, I don't
37:35
Speaker 1: get it. But also I understand that I've had this
37:38
Speaker 1: conversation with people before where I guess they think I'm
37:41
Speaker 1: goining for square because you know, when there was that
37:45
Speaker 1: huge market crash in two thousand and eight, like people
37:48
Speaker 1: just lost their money, like if it's the stock or not,
37:50
Speaker 1: because that's sort of a concept that we're just believing
37:53
Speaker 1: his value as well, and I get nervous about that
37:56
Speaker 1: for now, and then I'm like, I think I should
37:58
Speaker 1: just withdraw everything and put it under my mattress, right right.
38:01
Speaker 1: But then I'm like, then we needed to be gold
38:03
Speaker 1: because dollars anything. Yes, so we get that, we get that,
38:08
Speaker 1: but yeah, we would love to hear from any of
38:11
Speaker 1: your listeners who know more about this, who are involved
38:14
Speaker 1: with this. Oh, please please contact us. You can email
38:19
Speaker 1: us at stuff and your mom Stuff at ihart media
38:20
Speaker 1: dot com. You can find us on Twitter at mom
38:22
Speaker 1: Stuff podcast or on Instagram at Stuff I've Never Told You. Thanks,
38:25
Speaker 1: it's always to our super producer Christina. Oh, I bet
38:27
Speaker 1: she didn't like sell her art conduction. Yeah, I think
38:31
Speaker 1: you need to make us anc somehow, don't make us
38:34
Speaker 1: look bad. Thanks to you for listening. Someone Never told you.
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Speaker 1: Protection of I Heart Radio For more podcast from I
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