Nothing in this article constitutes or should be taken as financial advice and should be treated as for illustrative and educational purposes only. Always do your own research. 

This week’s column is not directly about NFTs, but about something that sits outside of the comfort zone for many of us – talking about money.

A couple of weeks ago I subscribed to a new podcast called The Girls Table by Elana aka TradingFemale I started following Elana on Twitter at the beginning of this year when I applied for residence in the NFT rabbit holes. She started her career at a big 4 accounting firm, gained her CPA* and moved on to tech sales before jumping into the world of web3 venture capital. As a fellow woman working in VC, I know how much hustle it takes to break into the industry, so whatever Elana has to say – I am listening. 

But I digress… what I find interesting is the name of the podcast – it’s called The Girls Table because Elana increasingly found herself wanting to sit at the guys’ table, where the guys would be talking about investments, money and building wealth. So, she wanted to redefine what it means to sit at the girls’ table. You might find this jarring at first, I sure did - “what do you mean?!” I thought to myself with a hint of irritation, “we talk about money and building wealth!” But then I had to stop and think if it was, in fact, true.

I have a lot of girlfriends, both in Australia and the UK. They are all brilliant women, successful in their various chosen fields and at different stages of their careers. They are also at various stages of life – single, married, children, divorced – so a mix overall. But out of all those women, there is only a small handful that would willingly and comfortably talk about money. Even then, investing and wealth are never a top choice for conversations when catching up – even with the girlfriends who work in finance. 

I am certain it is not because we do not want to build wealth – who doesn’t?! Perhaps it is because we, as women, value personal relationships above our personal wealth, or because it is considered crude to socially discuss money, or perhaps it is just uncomfortable…but either way I feel like we are missing a trick here. Or rather an opportunity. 

I remember a while back when I told a close friend what salary I was on, she said “you are worth more than that, here is why…” That conversation was a catalyst for me getting a new, better paying job and since then I have become a lot more open when it comes to discussing salaries with girlfriends.

When I started my current job, I had to get a basic understanding of blockchain and crypto. I bought some bitcoin, ethereum and a couple of other random coins a few months into it purely as an experiment. I didn’t tell anyone about it, partly because I thought it was pretty risky (still do) and partly because it was way out of my comfort zone. I didn’t really know what I was doing, and I didn’t feel comfortable passing any views on the matter (while comfortably slotting into the stereotype where a woman needs to feel like an expert to speak up about something – eye roll at myself). What holding those coins forced me to do, however, was to pay attention to what was happening in the crypto space.   

Fast-forward eight months and I found myself at a friend’s house, accidentally at the “guys’ table” where they are discussing their crypto holdings, and prices and sharing experiences and tips. At first, I found it hugely uncomfortable, because up until now I have been largely flying solo in my crypto explorations. Were they bragging? What even was this? But then I realised this was no different to talking about sport for them, and they were learning from each other in the process. I started asking questions, turns out these guys have a WhatsApp group where they discuss this stuff. It then hit me that even though I probably knew more than them about crypto theoretically, my risk tolerance was a lot lower than theirs and that was partly because I was navigating it on my own.

I later ran my observation past another woman I connected with in the web3 space. She also confirmed that none of her women friends discuss their crypto or even normal investing adventures in an open forum. This might explain why money and investing clubs, as well as financial education businesses for women, have been gaining popularity – they create a forum where we have permission to talk about our money, our financial successes and failures and create a space for us to learn. Recently, I started seeing some of these projects also popping up in the web3 space – and I support them wholeheartedly. 

My hope is that the open nature of blockchain, be it in NFTs or crypto trading, will eventually shift our perceptions about how we talk about money and wealth, because every transaction is out there in public, accessible to anyone willing to look for it. 

But this topic is way beyond that. The biggest shift needs to happen in our heads. This is not me telling you to start investing in crypto – far from it! This is me saying that perhaps the time has come for us, as women, to get out of our comfort zones and start talking about money and wealth more, start learning from each other and supporting each other in this realm. 

Have a question about web3? Tweet us @liyadashkina and @WeAreAllbright 

* CPA – Certified Public Accountant industry qualification

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