A week ago, CoinTelegraph published a “women who kicked ass in crypto” piece in which only one non-American or non-European woman (Maya Parbhoe) was mentioned.
Because I feel that what’s happening with Bitcoin in Africa, Latin America, The Middle East and Southeast Asia — regions where bitcoin is more often used as a currency and a money of last resort — is far more exciting than what’s happening in the United States and Europe, I’m here tell you about some ladies in the Bitcoin space from these regions who kicked ass in 2024.
Farida Bemba Nabourema — Nabourema is a long-time activist and human rights defender, originally from Togo. She’s also the primary organizer for the African Bitcoin Conference, which, for the last three years, has provided Africans with an incredible opportunity to present to and network with Bitcoiners from around the globe.
Reyna Chicas — Chicas is a Salvadoran was promoted to Director of Education for Mi Primer Bitcoin this year, and she also sits on the organization’s board of directors. Her journey in Bitcoin started just two years ago when she went to the Adopting Bitcoin conference in El Salvador as an attendee.
Roya Mahboob — Mahboob is one of Afghanistan’s first female tech CEOs. She also founded the Digital Citizen Fund, a non-profit aimed at improving technological literacy of Afghan women. This year, she’s continued in her efforts to create IT centers for girls in high schools across Afghanistan and also bring her education model to schools in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Nepal.
Dea Rezkitha — Rezkitha is the Community Master for Southeast Asia for Fedi and co-founder of the Indonesian Bitcoin Community and the Indonesia Bitcoin Conference. Aside from keeping up with her duties for Fedi this year, Rezkitha toured the world speaking about her work at events like the Oslo Freedom Forum and Bitcoin 2024.
Lorraine Marcel — Marcel, based in Kenya, is the founder of Bitcoin Dada, a virtual Bitcoin education platform and sisterhood for African women. She was also awarded the Most Impactful African Bitcoiner of 2024 award by the African Bitcoiners group.
Kenyan Lorraine Marcel (@marcelorraine) is our Most Impactful African Bitcoiner of 2024!
Through @btc_dada and @DadaDevs she empowers leaders like @waithiraah, @LindaKariu54810, @noelynesumba and many others, creating a ripple effect which is changing Africa forever.
More👇 pic.twitter.com/W84gicWVs1— African Bitcoiners ⚡ (@afribitcoiners) December 11, 2024
Isabella Santos — Santos is a co-founder of the Mexican Bitcoin community BTC Isla, based in Isla Mujeres as well as a co-founder of the Bitcoin media outlet Get Based (which recently released a killer documentary entitled “How The Federal Reserve Secretly Enslaved The World”). Beyond that, she continued to tour the globe this year as the host of Bitcoin Backstage, bringing you some juicy takes from backstage at the world’s biggest Bitcoin conferences.
Noelyne Sumba — Sumba, based in Kenya, oversees “orange-pilling operations” for Machankura, a Bitcoin Lightning wallet that can be used on feature phones. Also, in 2024, Saifedean Ammous’ classic The Bitcoin Standard was published in Swahili and Abdi thanks to Sumba’s help in translating the text.
Hadiya Masieh — Masieh is based in London but was born to Mauritian and Ugandan parents. She’s the founder of the Groundswell Project, an organization that works to foster peace and empathy amongst diverse communities. She gave a talk at the “Oslo Freedom Forum” this year entitled “How Bitcoin Can Fund Counter-Terrorism”, in which she highlighted how she’s taught Somali women how to use bitcoin for political fundraising to help support female candidates in the country.
Janet Maingi — Maingi, based in Kenya, is a co-founder of Gridless Compute, a company that not only mined bitcoin in Africa profitably this past year but also helped bring electrification to rural regions of Africa.
Mary Imasuen — Imasuen, who is of Nigerian and Filipino descent and based in Nigeria, is the Global Marketing Manager for Fedi and a self-described “bitcoin-only gamer” who often speaks in support of THNDR Games. While Imasuen wasn’t touring the world discussing her work in 2024, you could hear from her as a podcast guest or on a gaming stream
Honorable mentions: Renata Rodrigues (Head of Marketing and Community at Fedi, originally from Brazil), Lorena Ortiz (Latin America Community Master at Fedi, based in Mexico), Edith Mpumwire (Ugandan Community Manager for Bitcoin Dada and supporter of Bitcoin Kampala), Sabina Gitau (co-founder of Tando, based in Kenya), Efrat Fenigson (host of the “You’re The Voice” podcast, based in Israel)
And I’m going to give a quick shout out to some bad ass ladies who crushed it this year from Europe, the U.S. or elsewhere: Caitlin Long, the US-based CEO of Custodia Bank started a lawsuit against the Federal Reserve; Susie Violet Ward, the UK-based Bitcoin journalist and CEO of Bitcoin Policy UK wrote extensively about the dangers of over-regulating the Bitcoin industry in the UK and Europe this year; Lyudmyla Kozlovska, who worked to help preserve privacy in Bitcoin transactions through her organization, the Open Dialogue Foundation; Anna Chekovich, the Russian Bitcoin advocate from Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, who also joined the Human Rights Foundation’s Financial Freedom team; Umi Miyahara, the Japanese-American Business Development Lead at Breez, who helped facilitate many new partnerships for Breez; DJ Valerie B Love, the US-based creative who launched an exceptional virtual conference; NiftyNei, who launched the Base58 education platform; Gloria Zhao, a Bitcoin core dev who does an excellent job in distilling how Bitcoin works; Ella Hough, who helped Cornell University launch its first independent Bitcoin-focused study program; Ayelen Osorio, who launched the Human Rights Foundation’s Financial Freedom Report newsletter); and L0la L33tz, the independent journalist did an incredible work in covering privacy as it pertains to Bitcoin and crypto for her publication The Rage.
I know there are an innumerable number of women in the Bitcoin space who neither I nor CoinTelegraph acknowledged.
To those women, I apologize for not being able to fit you into this piece, but I thank you for your work and contributions to the Bitcoin space.
This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
