In July 2020, Twitter was briefly rocked by a cryptocurrency scam in which hackers, gaining access to the verified accounts of approximately 130 organizations and high-profile individuals, solicited donations of bitcoin with the promise of returning double the donors’ money. Though Twitter intervened within the day to stop the spread of these scam messages, estimates suggest the scheme netted the equivalent of over US$100,000 in cryptocurrency transfers (Frenkel et al 2020). Though the hack raises various cybersecurity issues, of note is that, among the individual accounts compromised, it was the accounts of male celebrities, technology innovators, and politicians that were targeted to raise money in the scheme. Among lists of known targets only one woman – celebrity Kim Kardashian – was identified (Frenkel et al 2020; Holmes et al 2020).

The demographics of the targets in this scam speak to a bigger question surrounding cryptocurrency and the growing sphere of decentralized finance: Where are the women? As the rise of virtual currencies has accelerated over the past decade – with bitcoin appreciating as much as 8,000 per cent per year in value and becoming more widely accepted as a form of payment (Golumbia 2016) – women have largely been left out of the resulting wealth acquisition. Demographic surveys of cryptocurrency holders suggest that women represent under 13 per cent of all users, while surveys of the general public suggest that women have substantially less awareness about this market than men (ING/Ipsos 2018; Coin Dance 2020). As such, it can be said that the architects of the July 2020 attack on Twitter knew their marks – primarily leveraging the accounts of users that a mostly male target audience would view as aspirational or trustworthy figures.

The gender inequality among cryptocurrency users stands at odds with promises from advocates and developers, who have long sold cryptocurrency as a tool to liberate populations from authoritarian governments, existing social hierarchies, and the instability of traditional currencies in many parts of the world (Vigna and Casey 2015; Golumbia 2016). Cryptocurrency projects carry the promise of reducing inequality by reaching the ‘unbanked’ populations of the world – particularly women and residents of the Global South – offering new avenues for economic empowerment and security, including in fragile and conflict-affected states (Baldet and Powell 2019).