The earliest adopters of Bitcoin — the libertarian anarchist “cypherpunk” crowd — were mostly men. Today, roughly a decade after Satoshi Nakamoto’s famed white paper was released, the majority of cryptocurrency holders are still men.
This poses a problem for the companies betting on the mainstream adoption of cryptocurrency. At this point, they’ve already tapped into that core base of Bitcoin enthusiasts, namely Millenial men. But how do they reach more women? Or Gen Xers? Or Baby Boomers?
Crypto finance company Circle thinks accessible, educational resources are the answer. As of today, the company has added a new feature (pictured above) to their crypto investing app, Circle Invest. Their hope is that simple, jargon-free explainers — sort of a ‘Cryptocurrencies for Dummies’ built into the app — will make it easier for new demographics to get their foot in the door of the crypto universe and learn a thing or two along the way.
“A lot of the apps that exist on the market are geared toward folks that understand the market already and unfortunately, that tends to be men,” Circle’s head of product Divya Agarwalla told TechCrunch.
The inspiration for the new feature came after the results of a study showed a serious lack of diversity among crypto investors. The study, commissioned by Circle, surveyed 3,000 Millennials, Gen Xers and Baby Boomers in the U.S. and found that Millennial men are more than twice as likely to invest in crypto in the next year.
For anyone that has attended a blockchain event or crypto conference, this probably isn’t news. According to Coin.dance, roughly 95 percent of Bitcoin “community engagement” comes from men.
A strategic attempt to tap into a new user base is a natural step for Circle, which has long had ambitions of becoming the PayPal (and Venmo) of cryptocurrency.
Most people are familiar with Circle’s consumer-facing payments app, Circle Pay, though the company also operates a trading desk called Circle Trade, as well as Poloniex, another exchange platform the company tacked on via its acquisition of the company of the same name earlier this year. That deal, according to Fortune, was worth some $400 million.
Circle has raised about $250 million in venture capital funding to date from IDG Capital, Breyer Capital, General Catalyst, Accel, Digital Currency Group, Pantera, Blockchain Capital, Goldman Sachs, Tusk Ventures and more. A $110 million round in May valued the company at $3 billion.