Dubbed equally "the largest Bitcoin outcome in history," Bitcoin 2022 consisted of 12,000 attendees from across the world. Undoubtedly, Bitcoin (BTC) adoption is growing at an impressive rate. Yet judging past the omnipresence at Bitcoin 2022, men still appear to be the master audition for Bitcoin.

While the lines to the bathroom made information technology obvious that there were nowhere well-nigh as many female attendees every bit in that location were males, at that place were also fewer women speakers than men at Bitcoin 2022. For example, only 27 women are featured on the Bitcoin 2022 website, which consists of over 150 speakers in total.

Although this was the case, the 27 women who did speak at Bitcoin 2022 left a lasting impact. The female person speakers at Bitcoin 2022 discussed a number of different topics including regulations, technical aspects, legal requirements and more than.

Wyoming sets the phase for Bitcoin innovation

United states Senator of Wyoming Cynthia Lummis discussed how regulators can encourage Bitcoin innovation in the land. Lummis was joined by Representative Warren Davidson for the console "Bringing Bitcoin Innovation Home to America."

Lummis kickstarted the discussion by explaining how she got involved with Bitcoin, maxim: "I got into Bitcoin later on being Wyoming State Treasurer. I was looking for great stores of value."

Lummis mentioned that the "fun" thing virtually Bitcoin is that it'due south very non-partisan and bi-partisan at the same time. Equally such, she noted that information technology'south a nifty space for those struggling with other problems that are decisive in Congress. "Bitcoin is a groovy 'Switzerland' kind of a place for us, where we can work on these issues and put aside some of the political consequences."

While Lummis made a number of notable points, the audience applauded her annotate regarding Bitcoin's employ equally an nugget to interconnect with the U.Due south. dollar:

"It tin can be the underlying network worldwide to keep the dollar the global reserve currency, simply nevertheless allow people to transact in a very freedom-loving mode. Whether you're in Venezuela, where inflation is outrageous and y'all're trying to become your wealth out of the country, yous can get it out through Bitcoin. And, the The states, if we get to the point where we're experiencing the kind of inflation that nosotros've seen this year, we may desire that alternative every bit well."

Given Wyoming's friendly opinion toward Bitcoin, it was no surprise to as well see Caitlin Long, CEO and founder of Avanti Financial Grouping — a Wyoming bank formed to span digital assets with the U.S. dollar payment system — speak at Bitcoin 2022. Long spoke on a panel entitled "Evolutions of Exchanges" and fabricated a number of insightful points.

For instance, when asked about centralization risks associated with exchanges, Long noted that the digital asset industry is making some of the same mistakes as traditional fiscal services:

"Yous cannot have perfect markets if you don't have perfect information. The intermediaries in this industry are not doing proof-of-reserves and are not voluntarily disclosing financial statements to sympathize the counterparty run a risk associated with them. In some cases, with 100-to-1 or 125-to-1 leverage futurity contracts, the probability of loss is in the high 90th percentile. Would people actually merchandise those if they knew they were near guaranteed to lose money?"

When asked about the ethos behind Avanti Financial, Long farther remarked that "Satoshi gave us money that isn't debt," noting that Avanti is committed to solvency instead of liquidity. "A lot of folks are obsessed with liquidity, but Satoshi didn't create anything designed to exist leveraged and didn't care most liquidity," she said. Long additionally advised the audience to learn well-nigh circulation credit.

Bitcoin'south network effect explained

The "Bitcoin for Billions, Not Billionaires" fireside conversation featuring Elizabeth Stark, co-founder and CEO of Lightning Labs, and Lyn Alden, founder of Lyn Alden Investment Strategy, was also interesting. The discussion focused on the importance of Bitcoin'south network upshot, something which both Stark and Alden are very passionate most.

Alden explained that Bitcoin's network upshot is important to understand when because Bitcoin as an investment asset. The economist shared that, initially, she was wary of roofing Bitcoin every bit an asset class due to its open-source nature, which could easily be replicated, along with its giant price run in 2022. However, after watching Bitcoin'southward network effect over time, Alden noted that the digital avails could withstand its competitors while also maintaining its stiff, devoted community. "Over time, my conviction kept growing and growing. By the fourth dimension we had the early 2022 liquidity issue, that'southward when I finally said 'I'm in,'" she said.

After monitoring Bitcoin'southward network effect for some time, Alden noted that her fascination extended to the Lighting Network, a layer-two payment protocol. She explained that in some ways, the layer-two aspect is more than reliant on the network event than Bitcoin'south base layer since the key limitation of the second layer is liquidity:

"The stronger this gets over time, the more usable the network gets as a protocol of value. Information technology's been important to monitor the network consequence to meet it continue to grow. This is separate from Bitcoin'southward price fluctuations, as the underlying fundamentals hither are employ cases and technology improvements, which are the key things for Bitcoin'southward success."

Investing in the Bitcoin space for growth

Some other notable female speaker at Bitcoin 2022 was Hong Fang, CEO of Okcoin. Fang spoke on the "Giving Back to Bitcoin" panel, where she discussed how to prioritize investments in the Bitcoin space, who to invest in, and how to make the Bitcoin customs scalable. "As to date, our investment in sponsoring the developers is up to $1 million, which is about $500,000 a twelvemonth. To usa, this is a significant amount of money, but when y'all think of the funding needs of developers, this is a small amount," she said. As such, Fang noted that it'south important to keep Bitcoin developer funding diversified and flexible.

An interesting bespeak regarding Bitcoin and decentralization was further fabricated by Alyse Killeen during the "Investing in the Bitcoin Ecosystem Console." Killeen told Cointelegraph that the panel mainly focused on the risks that can occur when coin is centralized, such as inflation. With this in mind, she explained the importance of Bitcoin's decentralization:

"Ane of the necessary things for a thriving decentralized finance environment to exist is for decentralization to be present at the base layer. It doesn't make sense to build decentralized finance on software controlled by rulers. Bitcoin is a system of software enforced by rules, but absent-minded of rulers."

New legal requirements for Bitcoin

To Killeen'due south betoken, in that location are a number of rules associated with Bitcoin. Hailey Lennon, partner at Anderson Kill law firm, and Teana Baker-Taylor, general manager for Crypto.com U.Grand., made this clear during the "Bitcoin Makes the Laws" session.

For example, Baker-Taylor explained how the Financial Activity Task Force, or FATF, relates to Bitcoin. Specifically, she explained the privacy issues brought most by the Travel Rule, which aims to require individual crypto users to provide information when sending or receiving Bitcoin across any blockchain network. "How are nosotros supposed to record and shop this data, and who is responsible for storing it? Several things take to be put in place to allow virtual asset service providers to be compliant with the Travel Rule," she said.

Lennon further touched on the topic of secondary market regulations, noting how great it is for companies to now have different licensing options:

"What all the oversight is looking to do is to be a supervisory role and to ensure in that location are consumer protection rights in in that location and that companies are well-capitalized and have a compliance programme. The procedure of getting these licenses is tedious and expensive, only at that place are different options at present."

Bitcoin-inspired art

It'due south also of import to mention that there was one female person artist featured at the outcome's Bitcoin art gallery, which showcased an elaborate drove of Bitcoin-inspired artwork from various creators.

Trew Love, a muralist and mixed media artist, told Cointelegraph that she was discovered by NFT Glee — a nonfungible token platform for artists and creators — and was curated within its collection by Evie Phillips, master marketing officeholder of NFT Glee.

Love noted that when she heard well-nigh the opportunity to bring together the NFT curation, she began to mint her drove. "I jumped on information technology and created an exclusive one-of-a-kind piece featuring Mike Tyson and a Bitcoin champion winning belt. I believe Bitcoin is the coin to rule it all," she said.

Source: NFTglee; artwork by Trew Love at Bitcoin 2022

Notable attendees

While a handful of female speakers discussed relevant topics on stage at Bitcoin 2022, notable female attendees had news to share with Cointelegraph.

Vanessa Grellet, head of portfolio growth at CoinFund, told Cointelegraph that she plans to achieve ii main goals moving forwards. Grellet noted that CoinFund will have a multi-strategy approach to launch various vehicles related to different strategies such as NFTs, DeFi, farming and more. "We want to create specific vehicles for investors and to focus on those activities," she commented. Secondly, Grellet explained that CoinFund will be expanding to go bi-coastal, including a location in Miami.

Related: Women-led events may encourage long-term female participation in blockchain

Lisa Nestor, senior director of enterprise ecosystem for the Stellar Development Foundation, told Cointelegraph about a new partnership with Wyre, a blockchain payments company. Nestor noted that the Stellar Network is powering a new Wyre Savings API where fintechs tin can access yield-earning savings products leveraging USD Coin (USDC) on the Stellar blockchain.

In add-on to women discussing company growth and innovation, some ladies shed some insight on the quality of the briefing. Mandy Campbell, caput of content for Okcoin, told Cointelegraph that she had heard from a lot of inspiring women at Bitcoin 2022:

"It's clear there are more and more brilliant women pushing Bitcoin forward every twenty-four hours, both building the engineering and expanding how it's used. I saw a lot of passionate female person supporters in attendance as well. Bitcoin is for everyone, and the people who participated in the conference reflected that."

Quality over quantity

Overall, while there were significantly fewer women speakers and attendees than men at Bitcoin 2022, the event was nonetheless high-level, informative and fun. Moving forward, though, the Bitcoin community may outset to run into more women participation at conferences as the topic gains momentum.

For instance, Teodora Atanasova, VIP relations manager and founding team member at crypto-friendly bank Nexo, told Cointelegraph that Nexo sponsored the Bitcoin fine art gallery at Bitcoin 2022. Atanasova mentioned that she wasn't previously aware that only one female person artist was featured at the gallery. As such, Atanasova said she would make sure that more women are nowadays and featured at Nexo'southward upcoming events.

"The Bitcoin 2022 Art Gallery started as a cause — physically bringing together the talent that already had a lot in common conceptually. Equally a visitor, Nexo supports diverse causes, but since we hold financial literacy — and, thus, freedom — for women especially close to our hearts, we'd love to see more than female artists step forrard and participate as exhibitors at the next Bitcoin Fine art Gallery going forward."