'Here Come the Girls': NFT Projects Designed to Elevate Women in Crypto Are Seeing Stratospheric Gains

Disclaimer: In the interest of full-disclosure, some members of Novum Insights (not including this article’s author) are currently holders of tokens in collections discussed in this article.

The crypto industry as a whole has a reputation of being somewhat male-dominated. Last year, Bloomberg reported that only around 15% of BTC holders were women. Organisations such as Global Women in Blockchain have arisen to address this, but the fact remains that the industry is perhaps not as inclusive as it could be.

When it comes to NFTs, it's also far from an egalitarian space. Last week, Chainanalysis estimated that an incredible 80% of Ethereum NFT value was held by just 8% of wallets with NFT activity. And with respect to gender-representation, some argue that the NFT space is no different. As the space has grown exponentially over the last year and a half, many have drawn attention to the majority of high-end NFT owners and creators being male. Many have also taken notice of the fact that the majority of celebrity interest in the NFT space has been male, until now at least. Recently, female led NFT collections have been seeing a tremendous increase in valuation. Let’s take a look at some of the most popular collections, and why they’re taking off.

Female-Led NFT Collections

Info from NFTStats and NiftyPrice (Updated 17 Jan 22)

As can be seen above, Ethereum-based ‘female-led’ collections (whether through philanthropic endeavours or by having female creators and artists) have been leading the charge for NFT growth over the last month, with 100+ % growth. To illustrate how specifically this growth applies to female-led collections: BAYC and CryptoPunks (two of the mostly highly valued NFT collections) saw only 47% and 3% growth respectively over the same period.

Of these collections, WoW (World of Women) has seen the greatest success by far. The project launched with a floor price of 0.07 ETH ($228), meaning the project’s valuation has grown by  a staggering 11,470% to reach a floor price of 8.1 ETH ($26,439) this week. But the project’s success has influenced others to follow suit. Celebrity influencers have been weighing in to build popularity. In October last year, Reece Witherspoon announced that she had purchased a WoW NFT and  last Wednesday (Jan 12th) manager of Madonna and U2, Guy Oseary signed a contract to manage the NFT collection. Some of the recent growth of ‘female-led’ projects can undoubtedly be attributed to such celebrity influence. 

Interestingly, these successes do not reflect the recent bearish outlook for the cryptocurrency markets over the past month or so. NFTs seem to have been somewhat immune - with valuations growing as opposed to shrinking. This might indicate that NFT valuations now have at least some degree of detachment from those of cryptocurrencies. Whether that is read as good or bad news will likely depend on how much of one’s wallet is comprised of less liquid and more volatile ERC-721 tokens as opposed to ERC-20. Being on the right side of the field at the right time is the key to solidifying gains. 

Not Just About The Money

In many cases, the revenue generated by these projects goes towards worthy causes, not simply being stashed away. World of Women allocated 15% of its primary sales to the ‘WoW Fund’. Holders of the 22 ‘Curators Club’ NFTs can select 1/1 NFT art projects to be purchased by the fund. The project recently hired a dedicated ‘Head of Philanthropy’, and the project’s artist and co-founder Yam Karkai is involved in several philanthropic organisations with goals of educating women worldwide and ending child marriage amongst other things.

Philanthropic goals might  be part of what is driving interest in female-led NFT collections. Through the project's CEO Lisa Mayer, Boss Beauties is connected with the My Social Canvas foundation - a charity which funds mentorships and internships for women at school or university. A portion of both primary and secondary sale proceeds are used to contribute to My Social Canvas, as well as compensating token holders themselves. Similarly, Sad Girls Bar donates a portion of its sales proceeds to Agenda - a charity supporting women’s mental health issues.  

If something can be drawn from the recent successes of these collections, it is that something of an epiphany might be occurring amongst the global NFT community. Collectors and curious onlookers alike are beginning to expect more from their investments than appealing artwork and the opportunity to signal their crypto-wealth. Projects which can demonstrate a meaningful purpose and an ability to contribute to social goals  beyond the creators and holders of the tokens themselves, are enjoying high levels of interest - and for good reason.   

Written by Rob Henderson for Novum Insights.

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