Investment strategist Lyn Alden discusses her own Bitcoin journey, meeting skeptics and the industry’s male skew.
A recent survey conducted by OnMessage Inc. in the State of Texas found that men are 30% more likely to own bitcoins than women. And most people who have attended a Bitcoin meetup will notice the majority of them are men. In the Bitcoin space we often say “Bitcoin is for everyone,” however, statistics show a skewed participation.
But Bitcoin is for everyone, right? So what can we do to make Bitcoin culture more accessible to women?
There are many potential paths but the one I choose is to study and tell the stories of women in bitcoin. And where better to start than with Lyn Alden, founder and CEO of Lyn Alden Investment Strategies?
With a background in finance and engineering, Alden brings a unique and humble perspective to the Bitcoin space. His main emphasis is on macroeconomic analysis, investment research and the monetary system. He has been interviewed on many podcasts, including “What Bitcoin Did”, “Pomp Podcast”, “Coin Stories” and others. His work has been featured or quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Time’s Money Magazine and the Huffington Post, among many other publications.
Below, find Alden’s responses to some questions about his journey and the evolution of Bitcoin culture.
How did you learn about Bitcoin and what attracted you to it?
I first heard about it back in 2010 or so, when someone I know was mining on his computer game. It seemed good to me at the time and I planned to look into another, but life was busy and I never got it. Then, a few years later, I met again, and while it still seemed neat, the exchange seemed a bit sketchy. Once again, I planned to see more, but due to the complexity of life, I put it on the back burner.
During the 2017 bitcoin bull run, I opened an investment research company and I finally took the time to dig deeper, and wrote a public article about it in November of that year. My article discussed the merits of the technology, but expressed skepticism about the price after the euphoric price surge of the year, and I became an investment. This ended up being a good idea, as bitcoin collapsed and was subsequently clipped sideways for the next two and a half years. However, this time I did not repeat my previous mistakes – I continued to research the bear market, and finally bought, then continued to learn and buy more.
How did your colleagues react to your belief in Bitcoin? And how do you see this changing over time?
I don’t make it a public habit to talk about it. One of my friends became interested in it partly because of me, but most of the people I know are relatively uninterested in it. However, I have a large audience for my general writing, so I use the platform to share what I’ve researched about bitcoin, among other topics I write about.
Some viewers were (and still are) skeptical about it or didn’t like the fact that I’ve been writing about it for years, and they’d rather I didn’t. The rest of the audience are very happy and have learned a lot from it. Most people can’t spend a thousand hours searching for something like Bitcoin, so I can do it as part of my profession, and write about it so that the scale of knowledge sharing is better. And thus, I also attract readers who have been into Bitcoin longer than me, who may be interested in my articles on other subjects.
How do you usually respond to Bitcoin naysayers?
People only have so much bandwidth. There must be a lot of things I don’t want to do, but I can’t really focus on all of them at once. As a macroeconomics and monetary system analyst and someone who also has an engineering background, Bitcoin falls well within the scope of research and focus, but for many people it is not. It’s easy to get rid of, especially for people in developed markets with reasonably good banking systems. For many people, it seems like a solution in search of a problem. Many people focus on important things that I reject.
The only thing that doesn’t make sense to me is people who don’t really like it and don’t know about it yet. It’s usually an ideological problem, or an ego problem, or a misunderstanding of the media-related energy and moral panic that often causes the fire.
In your opinion, why is it important to close the gender gap in Bitcoin interest and adoption?
I see bitcoin as a very useful global form of money, and money for everyone. It is as simple as that. Therefore, it is natural to want to include people who are underrepresented in the Bitcoin space.
At least, if for example, a Bitcoin meetup is 80% male or more, it is worth asking the question what it is. It doesn’t have to be negative or surprising; interest in sound money economy and computer science are two areas that have been skewed male for a while, statistics. So, I understand that starting point when it comes to Bitcoin. However, we can ask why men find this technology more relevant than women, and observe that most content producers are men.
Some women feel out of place in male-dominated spaces, just as some men feel out of place in female-dominated spaces. Like somehow this is not “for them” even if they are not banned. For people (often men) who create educational materials about Bitcoin, do they create those materials for people like themselves, and therefore they may lose some way to share information that may be more conducive to women or other people who are not like themselves . ?
While I don’t think it’s a problem for certain places, including the Bitcoin space, to happen to be rather male-dominated (or in other cases, female-dominated), I think it’s worth thinking about under-represented groups and seeing what can be done to include more people in general . After all, most people who like Bitcoin think that it will continue to grow in importance and touch the lives of more people over time, and for everyone. The challenge and the opportunity, that is, find other ways to communicate the idea to different types of people.
When I first heard Alden speak at Bitcoin 2021 in Miami, I remember thinking he was brilliant and communicated with a humility uncommon in any sector. More impressive than his intellectual prowess is his commitment to financial literacy education, especially as it relates to Bitcoin. His writing has influenced many people for the better, helping to grow the adoption of Bitcoin.
A huge shoutout to Alden for taking the time to give his thoughts on this topic, and for anyone who is curious, Bitcoin is, in fact, for everyone.
This is a guest post by Becca Bratcher. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.