• SHIB The Metaverse, The International Women of Blockchain (IWB), and NOWPayments have collaborated to build diversity in the Web3 ecosystem.

• This follows the growing concerns of few females in the crypto space.

The Shiba Inu team has announced its interest in promoting gender diversity in the cryptocurrency, blockchain, and Web3 space by encouraging collaboration between SHIB The Metaverse, the International Women of Blockchain (IWB), and NOWPayments. IWB is an annual conference hosted by a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit organization to promote the growth of blockchain through diversity. NOWPayments, on the other hand, makes it easier for stakeholders to receive payments and donations in more than 160 cryptos at a low transaction fee. 

The partnership would enable SHIB The Metaverse, IWB, and NOWPayments to welcome all genders and nationalities into Web3.

Olayinka Odeniran, Executive Director of Black Women in Blockchain, and Chief Creative Director of IWB commented:

In our efforts to build diversity in Web3 and Metaverse, we are excited that the #ShibArmy is throwing their full support to onboarding more women into Web3. There is nothing better than to have a strong, powerful, and supportive community take notice of your efforts to build a diverse future. As the Executive Director of Black Women in Blockchain, I am thrilled to partner with SHIB to increase the army of #Shibwomen and to use NOWPayments, a female-led crypto payment platform, as our source for donations.

A $25,000 personal contribution to the new fund created by Shiba Inu’s Lead Developer, Shytoshi Kusama was said to have triggered the partnership. The fund has now reached more than $50,000. 

SHIB the Metaverse addressing a growing industry challenge

Recently, it was announced that SHIB The Metaverse would be built on top of the Ethereum Layer 2 (L2) blockchain, Shibarium. SHIB The Metaverse’s WAGMI Hub preview was also a point of attraction at the just-ended SXSW 2023. 

Xena Kash, CEO of NOWPayments spoke on the move:

As a female CEO, I am excited and honored to have this chance to help onboard more women to the blockchain, as well as spread awareness among those already there. It’s great to see our donation solution making waves in the SHIB community and going on to help involve more women in the space. From NOWPayments, I can say almost all our key roles are held by women — and we need more female CEOs in crypto!

Recent years have seen growing concerns about a lack of gender diversity in the crypto and the Web3 space. Recently, BCG X, the tech build and design unit of Boston Consulting Group (BCG) partnered with People of Crypto Lab, a creative and innovation studio to critically scrutinize the gender diversity of founders and investors. Using 2,800 participants worldwide, it was observed that only 13 percent of Web3 startups include a female founder. Among all employees at top Web3 startups, women represented 27 percent of the total workforce. Even though this is said to be high, it was observed that they were in non-technical roles such as Human Resources and Marketing. 

Last year, Crunchbase statistics also disclosed that only 292 crypto-female-founded companies, representing 5 percent of the total crypto projects, are operating.