Relation Talk #10 Recap: Web3 Career Development Challenges & Opportunities for Women
For a long time, all kinds of voices have been hoping to build authoritative barriers, advising women on how to conduct themselves and teaching them how to navigate the world. In 2023, the power of women is rejecting certain harsh standards disguised as “for your good.”
In the Web3 space, the power of women is growing stronger and stronger. They are unconventional, ambitious, and rule-breaking, and use diverse qualities to construct a multidimensional self.
Jessica, Founder of Relation, shared that for women in this industry, the unfamiliarity of Web3 technology may cause discomfort, but there are organizations like the Web3 Women Union that provide support and unity. Jessica believes that Web3 provides more opportunities for women to participate in new projects and developments by using their skills and experience, such as in writing, research, marketing, and more. However, Jessica also acknowledges the difficulties and language barriers that some may face.
To empower women in Web3, Relation is currently holding a women empowerment campaign, which offers a blockchain-based certificate recorded on chain to those who complete their tasks. Interested women can find more information in the pinned tweet.
In Relation Talk #11, Relation has invited this amazing new generation of women in the Web3 workplace to share their experiences.
Guests
Yuki (Moonbeam Marketing Manager): Moonbeam is a highly specialized Layer 1 chain that mirrors Ethereum’s Web3 RPC, accounts, keys, subscriptions, logs, and more.
Selene (BD/Marketing Bonfida): Bonfida is a global name domain provider.
Beryl (NexGen Venture Partner): NexGen Venture(@NexGenVen) is a youth-driven investment institution, a sidechain that specializes in young degens, builders, and talented individuals who have the potential to reshape and accelerate the multi-trillion-dollar future of the crypto market.
Questions:
1) First, could you share your professional experiences and the rich and diverse work experiences you have gained? As female practitioners or entrepreneurs, how did you enter the blockchain industry by chance and start your Web3 business?
Yuki (Moonbeam Marketing Manager): The story of my journey in web3 has been remarkable and interesting. So, before I joined the blockchain I worked as a VC intern, sourcing different projects and startups. So, this experience laid the foundation for my interest in the emerging technology like the blockchain or cryptocurrencies specifically.
In 2018, one of the partners at the VC firm casually mentioned the potential of blockchain and Bitcoin. Then he predicted a very significant increase in the value of Bitcoin and the domination of the Blockchain in the next decade.
So, I was attracted by these conversations and then I joined as an investment analyst in a web3 token firm in China for about two years. Thereafter, I had a chance to join Binance. My experience working in Binance provided me a deeper understanding of how crypto works. I was very fortunate enough to work with the co-founder in a marketing team where I continued to learn and grow more in the web3 industry.
Now, I currently work as the Chinese marketing manager, doing some of the BD work at Moonbeam. This is also a very interesting and fantastic working experience because its like a new chapter in my career journey to explore more on web3 from technology infrastructure perspective.
Overall, my journey in web3 and the blockchain is a very long learning growth.
I’m very excited to be a part of it.
Selene (BD/Marketing of Bonfida): Yuki that’s interesting. I have joined in maybe a more unconventional way than you did. I was doing my masters in industrial psychology. After graduating, I did pretty well but was struggling to find a job because of certain circumstances in the country I live in. Affirmative action needed to take place and the fact that I was a foreigner in the country I was living. It was a bit of a struggle.
One of my friends, they had mutual friends in crypto and I genuinely had no clue, about anything. Bitcoin meant crypto to me and I was employed as a moderator and it was a really steep learning curve. However, my nature is to work my ass off in whatever I do. It was a good challenge to be a part of something that I didn’t know much about, especially because a lot of people knew much more than I did at the time.
I invested myself fully into finishing my degree. In that way I think this speaks to women and to me myself. Not just women but perhaps men as well, that nature of really working to get what you want. At the time, I was working really hard in general.
I basically worked myself up, learned more about the crypto industry. It started up as a side job, just something to make a little bit of extra money, while I was finishing my studies. I truly learned to enjoy, learned to enjoy it.
So, started as a moderator in Bonfida, and things slowly moved up to marketing, and now currently doing marketing and BD. It has been a wonderful journey and something I’m quite proud of. Being able to be here amongst you three ladies and speaking about this. Opportunities like this don’t come often and even being able to voice it is awesome.
Beryl (NexGen Venture Partner): I was lucky to join the web3 industry and only heard about it through my friend’s introduction. My first internship was in a token fund, learned a lot from my leaders who were women investment managers. By taking one step at a time, I continued my internship in different ventures for over one year.
Beginning from last year, my partners and I founded the all-women community project web3 women union. After that, I joined as an advisor of the Alumni organization of CUHK, the Chinese University of Hong-Kong on the project, 0xCUHK. This year, I joined KTX Finance a blockchain project on the BSC chain. I am also the pioneer of our newly fund NexGen Venture.
That’s a summary of my experiences in web3, many of my friends remark that I have had some very inspiring experiences. It would be great if my experiences can encourage other women builders to grow and build more things in the crypto industry.
Jessica (Founder of Relation ): For a long time, I have worked as a trader and researcher in the Blockchain industry. As a result of my background in mathematics and working as a trader so I became interested in trading Bitcoin and Ethereum as alternative investments.
I started modelling and also the data model of the transactions and smart contracts and AMM for later development. That very much attracted me into this industry and made me understand more awesome things with the idea of decentralization.
Web3 for me is taking what Bitcoin did to money and applying it to something else including non-financial applications like web3 socials. So, I started business in Relation Labs.
2) Web3 is new to many newcomers. Could you share your understanding of Web3? How did you cross the perception of a new field when you first started in the industry, and how quickly did you get into it and start your career?
Yuki (Moonbeam Marketing Manager): From my understanding of web3, just to simplify, web3 is a concept and people regard it as the next generation of the internet. We can use this advanced technology, as it is more efficient and secured. We can create a more open, transparent and trustless society.
All of these describe an amazing futurist world. Technologies such as the blockchain, different blockchain networks, decentralized applications are new innovations that are able to secure reliable transactions, data management and efficient interactions between users.
So, my impression is that web3 represents a very fundamental shift in the way that we think about new business models. The web3 business model can incentivize users to participate in a decentralized network that empowers new innovations. We can see like so many examples in our industry, for example, successes of Uniswap, Sushiswap and other well-known DeFi protocols.
They are all excellent examples of showing the potentials of the web3 industry.
Also, for my entry into this industry, I’ll summarize in one sentence by saying, growing and learning through trial and error. Its like a joke I read recently, “You want to get into crypto? Trust no one and back up for a wild ride!
That’s what I have learned in this industry. You might explore new projects everyday but be ready to make mistakes too. Goodluck to everyone!
Selene (BD/Marketing of Bonfida): To me, very much like Yuki said but maybe in a different way. It’s an advanced technology and we are moving at the forefront, and that also means everything is fast-paced and ever so changing. That offers a bit of an advice and an opportunity to stay at the forefront, it’s really a place for you to give all your ideas and your wildest imagination when it comes to your business and projects in the web3 space.
We are not working in the traditional space were certain things follow certain rules. It’s really emboldening and creating an impression of being of everlasting and that’s not always easy. Once you become a part of it, it’s really fun to do. At the end of the day, your creative opinion obviously backed by research is always appreciated.
Fast paced and ever changing is something that we need to get used to and if that is something you are comfortable with, I would definitely advice you to do so. If it’s something you’re not comfortable it, I’ll advice you to try it out. It is exhilarating, and the only way you can learn is as Yuki said, from your mistakes, and you make many of them. However, you start to realize that not all of them are as harsh as you expect them to be. As long as you keep trying its fine, this world allows you to do that.
Beryl (NexGen Venture Partner): Web3 is a space full of freedom, also full of the latest decentralized technology. I find this attractive because I majored in data science for my undergraduate studies. We are still in the early stage for this industry, I expect that we’ll be mature in the next five to ten years. We think that this area is full of opportunity for young people.
There is a saying that, “If you missed web2, then don’t miss web3.” So, we are looking forward to cooperating with more and more women builders in the industry.
Jessica (Founder of Relation): I know that for web3, at first glance, any of the experiences that are new to you, might make you uncomfortable because it all seems new and unfamiliar. For example, logging in, and getting customer service to help when dealing with issues. Also, the fluctuation of assets during crashes or as a result of some news. Everything here is quite different and we must learn new things consistently to be able to catch up. For women within the industry, we can help each other, so newcomers won’t find themselves lonely in the industry.
There are many organizations such as the web3 women union, helping women help each other and united. There might also be such types of organizations in your own field. To start your careers, or if you want to begin something new, you can find them and join them.
3) There is plenty of opportunities and challenges in emerging areas, do you think the Web3 industry presents more opportunities for women? In which areas are these more likely to arise? What are some of the challenges and difficulties you have experienced in your current jobs and in the projects, you have started?
Jessica (Founder of Relation ): I’ll share my experience first. In web3, we have more opportunities because it is a new industry and everything’s yet to be settled. Other industries are male dominated but here we can still join in early to take part in new projects and developments by utilizing our skills and experience.
If you have experience writing, doing research or delivering reports or you are willing to build or participate in marketing related jobs, there are plenty of opportunities for women to start and understand more.
This new industry is highly related to digital assets, so financial freedom is another thing that is feminist. I believe that this is a good opportunity for ladies to have a try. However, there are difficulties, for some people who are not native English speakers, there might be a language barrier because web3 is more English based.
New things keep popping up every day and it becomes really difficult to catch up. Also, the fluctuation of the asset prices may threaten some from continuing and having strong beliefs in web3. However, we believe as we encounter all of this we can overcome.
Selene (BD/Marketing of Bonfida): I must agree with you in that sense. I haven’t encountered much marginalization as you would imagine in certain cultures in particular spaces. Yes, do I find myself working with other females in similar roles or doing similar things? Yes, usually we are the marketers or communicators or business developers. However, I don’t think that is too much to blame. It’s what we have put ourselves in, perhaps that’s something that we are comfortable with and what we would like to pursue.
Of course, being a developer, you can’t just jump into a job and do that, that is something you have to have adequate knowledge of really maintaining. For me, I don’t think I would have been as happy in my job if I wasn’t working in the web3 space. I have been given the freedom to do whatever I want to do as long as I do it well.
If I really wanted to be a develop, I’m sure I would have been allowed to in my project. That’s the beauty of it too, besides that, I am a pretty young individual. I don’t have so much experience, but I still find myself working with other young individuals, male or female, that may have more or less experience than I do.
We are all likeminded which makes it a lot easier. I think if I had to work in the business way, a white or blue collar, and the top management where all men, all about 20 to 25 years older, it would have been a much different space.
However, here I am working with individuals that are about my age, we have experienced similar things, we’ve learned through the ages. Its really much easier. I find myself having to take a step back and appreciate what I have and reflect on other women that might not have the same experiences as I do.
So, I am pretty grateful and I must admit when it comes to challenges, I don’t have many to highlight but opportunities have been wide and it just depends on you taking them. I guess for a very long time, I was able to go anonymous not in my project, but amongst other users. No one really could tell if I was female or male so that also helped.
We are in the web3 space where pseudo anonymity is appreciated, we don’t have to share where we come from, our gender, our age, or anything of that sort and its completely fine. Most of it as just been opportunities, the challenges that I have faced are challenges that any normal person would face; male, female or non-binary or non-identifying.
Beryl (NexGen Venture Partner): I couldn’t agree more with Jessica and Selene, so definitely the crypto industry brings freedom and equality for women builders. First, we should notice that the general situation in the traditional world not just the tech industry, but government, law and a lot of other industries, women are not accurately represented in board positions. However, what I have found since entering the web3 space is that there is a great opportunity for women to become leaders and board members like the guest speakers we have here today.
So, from my side, web3 women union will continue to offer workshops to onboard women who are interested in crypto. There is a basement between growth and technology. If you want, no one can know your private information just like Satoshi, let alone your gender. This is the basement of women equality.
When it comes to women builders’ opportunity, I believe that we should not take any limitations in women builders’ capacities, passion or contribution in web3.
We can already see women’s wonderful coordination and operation capacities in decentralized teams of different projects. We have the ability for co-creation, which is one of the most important parts of the digital economy and incentives. We will see more and more women entrepreneurs presenting their valuable ideas and insights to produce some successful products in the web3 industry.
We are willing to support more women entrepreneurs to achieve this in such a hopeful and promising industry.
4) Have you encountered some stereotypes from female practitioners since entering the blockchain industry, and what factors do you think contribute to this?
Jessica (Founder of Relation): As women are entrepreneurs, when I first started building Relation labs and having women team members start community building as well as the fund raising, it was not easy for us at all.
The industry is male dominated, so they might think that women do not code well or are might not be good enough to secure funding. It becomes more difficult for underrepresented people like us. I think the factors that contribute to this is the lack of diversification in the industry, underrepresentation adds to this.
I think I personally would love to encourage women and girls to join this industry and take part of any role that contributes to the industry and especially the women community. This way, we can help each other and speak up for women web3, and this in the long term will make us more represented in this industry.
That would be helpful for us and for the newcomers.
Beryl (NexGen Venture Partner): I think that some stereotypes do exist in this industry mainly because of the unbalanced ratio of women builders here and also the lack of women voices. When it comes to women representation and their voice, I have to say that members that are great women builders have not been known by the public.
For example, when I was hosting our women’s community meetup, I met a very young woman entrepreneur who had already developed several projects and raised over $20 million from both Chinese and global firms. Deep down, I respected her contributions to crypto and also recognized the deficiency of channels for web3 women to speak out.
So, we also created our own podcast aimed at providing web3 women a platform to speak, build their personal brands and expand their influences. We expect to bring more and more impact on changing this terrible situation and formulating open understanding on the power of women in the wave of web3.
Selene (BD/Marketing of Bonfida): Yes, I think a general stereotype that I have experienced that’s pretty persistent amongst men in general compared to women, is that we have a softer nature when it comes to communicating perhaps. That’s something that I have heard in many podcasts and research. We need to practice being more assertive than we are.
I find that sometimes I may have been taken advantage of, but much more on a psychological level. It’s almost like a language politics, the way we speak versus how others speak, and I mean in how certain points can be made. It’s the subtleties in the workspace that really accumulate to an issue and it’s how we are able to manage and learn from those.
It includes how to overcome those in the future. Women have really come a long way in their rights and respect, moving forward, but I think it will be a persistent issue. It might not be as pervasive as it used to be but nuances will still remain. I also think that new nuances will develop in how we are treated and how things are dealt with.
To me, it’s a challenge to figure out what those nuances could be, and how to overcome them. My goal is to never let that sort of thing happen to me. In terms of stereotyping, I have been shut up, maybe once or twice or thrice.
I’d lay in bed and think about it. Why was I quieted down? It underpins the insecurity as a female where there’s this underlying thread of feeling little bit submissive when authority is pushed around us. Its something that I felt is a stereotype that I have now turned into a challenge to overcome and overpower.
5) Relation launched a Web3 Women’s SBT event this Monday, which asked three simple questions. The first question is, do you support women entering Web3 entrepreneurship or employment? The second question is Do you recognize that Web3 women in the workplace contribute to the Web3 world in important and diverse ways? The third question is, are you willing to speak up for Web3 women long-term? Can you give us your views and attitudes on these three questions?
Selene (BD/Marketing of Bonfida): To me, that’s a pretty obvious question as a woman. Of course, I support, I would love to think that I empower women too. I am super privileged to be I a space where we are a group of eight. Three are women, two central and one eastern. I have experienced some of the struggles that an Asian woman has in the space in terms of communication.
Perhaps when someone immediately discourages the intelligence because of a language barrier. That’s not the case at all. I am going to share this small experience I had, where the woman I worked with, such a fabulous and intelligent girl. She actually has two full time jobs, just ingenious. However, she feels uncomfortable relating her ideas, because she is barriered by the way she can relay it in English.
My experience was that it is mostly just a confidence building, it doesn’t matter how you relay it as long as you do relay it. I think that is something that should continue whether, you feel quieted down, whether you don’t think your idea is smart enough. I feel like, as women we carry a lot of this in our heads.
If it’s stupid its stupid, if its smart its smart and it works, but at least you were brave enough to share it. I would rather die trying than at the end of the day never done anything. Yes, of course it is embarrassing but I think a lot of people have to go through a lot of embarrassing things.
Luckily, in my year and a half in web3, I have done a shitload of embarrassing things. Believe me, I have sat at the dinner table thinking about it countless times, like how could I have done this? But it lasts a week and no one fired me, no one hated on me or dismissed me.
It is important to accept that you are not subpar, you never were. Especially in this space you are on an equal playing field whether you want to be anonymous or not, just do you. Be brave, assert yourself. Go ahead with your ideas, however you want to relay it but do relay it.
That’s something that I like to encourage especially with the females in our project which is maybe a little biased again because I’m not always as encouraging to the males, which I should work on. I think as long as you say it, do it and try, that bravery to me is amicable. That’s what I like to try and encourage all of my fellow colleagues to do, especially female colleagues.
6) Moving on from the previous question, we all know that the development of Web3 needs to be driven by all builders and that the power of women should not be underestimated. We should make the world more inclusive and open-minded for Web3 women and support more Web3 women to spread their influence. What do you think should be done?
Yuki (Moonbeam Marketing Manager): I actually a 100% agree with our speakers, to be honest the web3 industry is still in the early stage, there is still room for women to establish themselves as leaders and innovators. Professions like blockchain engineers might be historically male dominated, there’s a gender imbalance in this technical roles and technical leadership positions.
For example, in the project I’m working on currently, the Moonbeam network, most of our engineering team members are men. In the marketing team, you find more women. When we want to learn some of the new technologies, and want to know more about some specific technical terminology, my colleagues are quite encouraging.
They help to learn a lot and we receive guidance on how to start to learn. It seems like we ignore the gender, just like as a colleague and team member. This makes me believe if I keep learning every day and explore more in the web3 and for the infrastructure technology, I can win the respect in my whole team.
This is what I have learned from my past work experience.
Beryl (NexGen Venture Partner): We have already held a lot of activities online or offline to build a women community. We provide information and resources for our community members and I just think we should cooperate with each other to expand women influences by holding more large-scale and high-quality activities such as this to build a stage for women builders in web to show how they contribute and work for web3.
Selene (BD/Marketing Bonfida): I think that what Jessica and Yuki said is spot on.
7）Lastly, do you have any upcoming product updates or campaigns that our audiences can join?
Beryl (NexGen Venture Partner): Thanks a lot for this question. So, I will expand a little bit. NexGen Venture is a venture for the next generation. We have a fund of over $10 million. We welcome all types of young talents. If you think you are a young talent, please free to follow and DM us.
We are also building a global community for talents. We will keep building and contributing to the community and the crypto industry.
If you are interested, you can just follow and DM. Thanks.
Yuki (Moonbeam Marketing Manager): I am glad to share sone details about moonbeam. If you are in Asia area, the moonbeam Chinese community will be pleased to meet you during the Hong-Kong web3 festival week. The Polkadot community, will organize several events including connecting with developers, builders, innovators and investors so that you can know what happens in Polkadot,
Another interesting topic will be about interoperability. It’s one of the top ten hot topics we discuss in web3. In moonbeam we have a new concept called connected contracts, which is also like a solution for achieving interoperability in different blockchain networks.
If you are more interested in how it works and any real use-cases, you are welcome to follow the Moonbeam network on Twitter or on our Telegram group. Looking forward to seeing you there!
Jessica (Founder of Relation): For us, we are having this women empowerment campaign, there are still a few days left for you to join this campaign. This is a chance for those who identify as female or who want to support females in web3 to get this blockchain based certificate.
This would be recorded on chain, which is a Soul bound token issued to anyone who completes their tasks. So, those who are interested should join the campaign in the pinned tweet.
I would also like to say thank you to the speakers who have joined us today. The world cannot be better without your contribution. Thank you also too those who have tuned in, female, male or if you prefer not to say. You are all welcome to join the Relation family. Thanks.
About Relation
Relation is building a Web3 social graph infrastructure that will host the next generation of billions of DApps, and empower souls and communities to co-build reputation and a better society on Web3 with SBTs and relationship data. Relation has launched Web3 social Dapp Relation ONE and the Semantic SBT standard which will create a chain native data layer that is easy to query, share and reuse with lower friction.
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