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Last week, Mavion World CEO and Co-Founder Michelle Reeves received a troubling text from a friend.
A fellow female CEO and founder of a Web3 startup, Reeves' friend sent along a message she screenshotted from a prominent male venture capitalist based in Australia.
“I’m hosting a dinner for crypto founders on Thursday and REALLY struggling with gender diversity,” the text read. “Wondering if you have any great founders in your network who aren’t white and male that might like to come along?”
The classic trope of a male investor asking one of the few female founders he knows if they “know any women” wasn’t surprising to Reeves. In the U.S., female founders raised just 2% of venture capital in 2021 and the numbers are similarly low over in Australia.
But what caught Reeves off guard was how much the VCs question to her friend completely missed the point.
“The investor was not asking ‘Who should be on my radar? Who have I missed? Who should I consider investing in?’” she told me. “They were more concerned with appearing diverse offering up a seat to someone who might ‘like to come along.’ Begs the question, how seriously will this investor really take the person who fills that seat?”
Reeves posted the text in question to her Instagram a week before another glaring gender fail hit cryptoland. Over the weekend, The University of Nicosia, in collaboration with prominent NFT collector Punk6529, announced an introductory course to NFTs and the Metaverse, delivered completely on-chain.
Out of more than 30 instructors and curators, only one identified as female.
Within 24 hours, several female instructors were added to the lineup and we commend the organizers for taking quick action. But the fast attempt to fix the gender composition of the course likely also came from a lot of women in Web3 receiving messages similar to the text Reeves' friend sent. But rather than them asking about a dinner, they were asking about teaching this course.
“Numbers don't lie. Web3 is proving to be a trillion-dollar industry and it's currently dominated by men,” said Reeves. “VCs who overlook female founders and marginalized demographics, especially people of color, who are building these solutions are missing an early-mover advantage that will be extremely valuable in the future.”
Bottom line: Web3 comes with the promise of a decentralized and transparent Internet that equalizes opportunity for all groups. But none of that promise will come to fruition unless the Web2 actors like this venture capitalist shift their diversity strategy from optics to true investment.
“There’s no excuse for being hard up to find women representation in Web3 today,” said BFF Co-Founder Jaime Schmidt. “Go to Twitter, listen to podcasts, read industry news. You’ll find thousands of women deep in the trenches and forging the path.”
Hear More From BFF’s Belonging and Mattering Council Here
OpenSea sinks. Yes, we saw ETH his $2,000 for the first time since May, outperforming BTC since the height of the bear market… but NFT sales are suffering. Last week OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace, saw $6.5 million in trades. In February, that figure was as high as $204 million.
Time to buy YourName.Eth? In advance of the merge (see more on this below), demand for .eth addresses is soaring to new heights. The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) hit two million registered domains after a record-number of purchases in July.
Fed tells crypto to call them. If a U.S. bank starts dealing with crypto, The Federal Reserve wants to hear about it. The Fed issued new guidance for banks considering activities involving cryptocurrencies. Banks now have to decide if working directly with the Fed is actually a good idea.
Build, build, build. Despite the market conditions, Web3 companies are seeing a lot of interest from big companies. In the past nine months, 40 of the largest 100 public companies have invested nearly $6 billion into Web3. Google has invested the most capital and Samsung has made the most total number of investments.
Boss Beauties big-screen moment. The NFT company led by Lisa Mayer signed with WME to help the brand adapt its intellectual property across Web3, film, TV, digital and gaming platforms.
Web3 weddings…plus tacos? We like to think we’ve seen a lot of crazy application ideas for Web3. But Taco Bell secured a trademark application to handle virtual weddings in the metaverse…takes the cake. Or the chalupa?
After getting lots of questions from the community on what the upcoming merge really means, we asked an expert from Coinbase to join us on Twitter to break it down. TLDR: The merge will likely lead to higher yields for those who choose to stake ETH on the blockchain and it most definitely will have loads of positive environmental implications.
Access for all. Historically, people with disabilities and other people in intentionally marginalized groups are left behind when it comes to creating mass-produced products. While Web3 can be thought of as a continuation of Web2, there is new opportunity to lead the way in the creation of products in Web3, realizing a suite of products that reach and benefit more people than the imagined “standard” set of users. Civil rights attorney Alexis Kashar explains for BFF exactly how.
Metagolden Founder Francine Ballard is partnering with Sotheby's on the first jewelry NFT to be sold at auction. The auction will be live in person as well as online starting September 24th. The lot from Metagolden will be phygital: A physical ring sold with its digital twin with digital fingerprint/AI authentication properties. Check out a "Day in the Life" with Francine over on our TikTok!
Clutch Wallet Co-Founder and CEO Bec Jones launched Clutch's beta web wallet. Users can: buy, send, swap and receive cryptocurrencies, enjoy no-seed wallet creation, view NFT's in their gallery view, connect multiple wallets into our interface for one portfolio view and browse education modules and crypto media.
Unstoppable Domains — where Sandy Carter serves as SVP and Channel Chief — is releasing an iPhone app. Users will be able to connect their profiles to crypto wallets such as MetaMask, and log into more than 180 decentralized applications (dapps) and games.
Chief Metaverse Officer Cathy Hackl was profiled in Forbes about her leadership in the space and insistance on being visible. It's not always easy. "I need to take some of what I call virtual bullets for lack of a better word, I’ll take them happily. Because I know that I’m taking them for the women who are coming right behind me."
Community member Stephanie Srikandi officially launched her ethical fashion brand in Web3 with TIALS World in part from her participation in BFF! Check it out here.
🤠 📸 🕺🏼With just a few emoji prompts, our SuperCreatives community created some pretty epic artwork! See just one example here from digital artist @ang_gallery.
Thanks for reading! We’d love to hear from you. Feel free to let us know what you think of this newsletter and what you’d like to see from it in the future by replying directly.
This newsletter and all the information in it does not constitute financial advice. If you don’t want to invest money or time in Web3, you don’t have to. As always: Do your own research.
