Women In NFTs
The year 2021 marked the success and the sudden popularity of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), with sales jumping over 21,350% from 2020. While creating and selling NFTs brought the promise of a democratized, passion economy, data has shown that NFTs in 2021 wasn’t really an equal opportunity for all. In fact, the opportunity for NFTs was almost entirely dominated by men.
According to the Art Tactic NFT Art Market Report 2021, male artists were responsible for 79% of NFT sales. On the other hand, only 5% of NFT art sales were attributed to women artists and only 16% of NFT creators identified as female. The gender disparity in NFTs goes beyond the art space and extends into the metaverse as well. Despite the fact that the metaverse aspires to become an inclusive and diverse ecosystem, Bloomberg reports that Male artists such as Beeple and others still comprised $50.8M, and 77% of all primary and secondary sales of $258.3 million.
The findings that women are misrepresented in the NFT and metaverse space are unfortunately not surprising. The crypto industry has long seen inequality in female voices across all sectors.
The disparity was highlighted early in 2018 by current VC and former co-editor of TechCrunch Alexia Bonitos in a tweet stressing the need for more female presence in the crypto and NFT space:
“Women, consider crypto. Otherwise, men are going to get all the wealth, again”
This sentiment was repeated by L’oreal Paris again in December 2021. The global cosmetics giant ventured into the NFT space by appointing five female artists to mint NFT art based on the L’Oréal Paris Reds of Worth lipstick collection. The campaign was launched as an initiative to give prominence to the lack of female representation in the NFT space. Although, there is a small percentage of females in the NFT space, this article aims to highlight prominent female-led NFT projects that have a profound impact in the blockchain space ranging from venture capital to entertainment.
From Finance to NFTs
Josie Bellini, former finance professional best known for Cyberbrokers features a first-of-its-kind art collectible that consists of 10,001 on-chain NFT collectibles. Her work constitutes the world of crypto, distinguished by its precision and resonant depth, it is often represented in virtual galleries. Her art is often powered by augmented reality culminating in the innovative nature of digital assets that gives rise to immersive experiences for her followers. In 2020, Bellini created a unique metaverse puzzle which foretells her aspirations for the upcoming virtual worlds, She has also created unique pieces in collaboration with Neon District, Cryptokitties, Axie, Cryptovoxels, SuperRare, Age of Rust, and OpeanSea. When she creates art NFTs you can spot her at major blockchain conferences such as Consensus, NFT NYC, and Satoshi Roundtable. Her work has been auctioned on notable platforms such as Christie’s and Sotheby’s Metaverse and more recently, Obama.org.
One of the highest-selling female NFT artist
Itzel Yard, aka IX Shell, Forbes magazine listed her as the highest-selling female NFT artist. The afro-carribean artist encapsulates the essence of generative art that vibrates with unbridled creativity of shapes and patterns built upon complex algorithms and autonomous systems. Undoubtedly, Yard is a minority female artist in this genre that is populated with male-dominated artists. She auctioned her ‘dreaming at dusk’ art piece on a marketplace called Foundation sparked a bidding war, and standing amongst the bidders was the CEO of Kraken, Jesse Powel. The art piece eventually sold for $2M to a group of collectors called PleasrDAO and proceeds from the auction went toward a non-profit Tor Project.
From freelancer on Fiver to Co-founder of WoW
Yam Karkao started her journey as a freelance digital artist on Fiver, only to branch out as the Co-Founder of World of Woman (WoW), in partnership with Raphael Malavieille, and Toomaie. The WoW, which was also promoted by Reese Witherspoon, is an initiative that addresses systemic challenges that women face. The team aims to promote diversity and inclusion through 10,000 randomly digital collectibles. The NFT project claimed the 21st spot in the top non-fungible tokens all-time on Opensea and generated more than $40M in revenue. Yam also debuted Women by Yam: Females in the spotlight which captures the aesthetics of culture with the beauty of women sold for 13.50 ETH.
Managing a $2B crypto fund
Amy Wu, Bloomberg reported that the former partner at Lightspeed Ventures, joined crypto-exchange FTX to lead a $2B crypto venture capital fund. FTX is a cryptocurrency exchange that offers tokenized stocks, industry-leading derivatives, and prediction markets. Wu brings both an operator's and investors' perspective to the NFT world. Her team of eight will support startups in the Web3 projects, offering a full-stack infrastructure platform for gaming, wallet exchange and compliance. On the operational side, she provides functional and business unit support enabling continuity of the mergers and acquisitions life cycle. Amy has a breadth of experience ranging from early-stage to corporate strategies across the US, Europe, and Asia.
Musician enters the NFT gold rush
The growing popularity of the NFT space has transcended into the realm of artists and celebrities. More notably, Claire Elise Boucher, also known as Grimes, is a Canadian musician, singer and songwriter. She stepped into the NFT gold rush selling a collection that generated a total of $6M in sales in less than 20 minutes. She released ten digital art pieces, some of which accompanied her music. The most prominent was “Death of the Old”, which sold for $389, 938 making it the highest music NFT to sell. “Earth”, and “Mars”, the other two NFTs in her music collection sold for $7.500 each respectively.
Neafy the founder of Women OF SOL NFT, is available on Solana which includes 9,970 opulent,hand-drawn avatars and 10 super rare 1 of 1s. The NFT collection was inspired by a group of female artists from Ghana, Africa in an effort to showcase the underrepresentation of women in the tech industry. The representational strategies of the NFTs embrace three basic thematic aspects of women’s diversity, equal opportunity, and inclusivity illustrated by artistic expression.
According to Cointelegraph, women-led NFT projects are focused on social change as opposed to capital gains or token utility. Although there is a small percentage of women in the NFT space, the mere fact that blockchain initiatives promote inclusion means that diversity in this space can be accomplished. The realm is growing in popularity with an industry outlook that enables anyone to flourish.
@ljin18
