Last week, CoinTelegraph published a “women kicking ass in crypto” piece where one non-American or non-European woman (Maya Parbhoe) was mentioned.
Because I feel that what is happening with Bitcoin in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia – regions where bitcoin is often used as a currency and a currency of last resort – is more exciting than what is happening in the United States and Europe , I am here to tell you about some women in the Bitcoin space from these regions who are kicking ass in 2024.
Farida Bemba Nabourema – Nabourema is a long-time activist and human rights defender, originally from Togo. He is also the main organizer of the African Bitcoin Summit, which, for the past three years, has given Africans an amazing opportunity to introduce and connect with Bitcoiners from around the world.
Reyna Chicas — Chicas is from Salvador and was promoted to the position of Education Director of Mi Primer Bitcoin this year, and sits on the organization’s board of directors. His Bitcoin journey began two years ago when he attended the Adopt Bitcoin conference in El Salvador as an attendee.
Roya Mahboob — Mahboob is one of the first female technical officers in Afghanistan. She also founded the Digital Citizen Fund, a non-profit organization that aims to improve literacy and technology for Afghan women. This year, she continued her efforts to build IT centers for girls in high schools across Afghanistan and brought her educational model to schools in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Nepal.
Dea Rezkitha – Rezkitha is the Community Master for Southeast Asia for Fedi and the founder of the Indonesian Bitcoin Community and the Indonesia Bitcoin Conference. In addition to his Fed duties this year, Rezkitha traveled the world speaking about his work at events such as the Oslo Freedom Forum and Bitcoin 2024.
Lorraine Marcel — Marcel, based in Kenya, is the founder of Bitcoin Dada, a platform for Bitcoin education and African sisters. He was also awarded the African Bitcoiner One Impactful of 2024 award by the African Bitcoiners group.
Lorraine Marcel from Kenya (@marcelorraine) the Most Powerful African Bitcoiner of 2024!
By using @btc_dada again @DadaDevs he empowers leaders like him @waithiraah, @LindaKario54810, @noelynesumba and many others, creating a revolutionary effect that is changing Africa forever.
More 👇 pic.twitter.com/W84gicWVs1– African Bitcoiners ⚡ (@afribitcoiners) December 11, 2024
Isabella Santos – Santos is the founder of the Mexican Bitcoin community BTC Isla, based in Isla Mujeres and the founder of the Bitcoin media outlet Get Based (which recently released a killer documentary entitled “How the Federal Reserve Secretly Enslaves the World”). In addition, he continued to tour the globe this year as the host of Bitcoin Backstage, bringing you juicy behind-the-scenes tidbits at the world’s biggest Bitcoin conferences.
Noelyne Sumba – Sumba, based in Kenya, oversees the “orangery operations” of Macankura, a Bitcoin Lightning wallet that can be used on feature phones. And, in 2024, Saifedean Ammous’ classic The Bitcoin Standard it 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. He is the founder of the Groundswell Project, an organization that works to promote peace and compassion between different communities. She gave a speech at the “Oslo Freedom Forum” this year titled “How Bitcoin Can Fight Terrorism”, where she highlighted how she taught Somali women how to use bitcoin to raise political funds to help women candidates in the country.
Janet Maingi — Maingi, who is based in Kenya, is the founder of Gridless Compute, a company that not only mined bitcoin in Africa for profit this past year but also helped bring electricity to rural areas in Africa.
Mary Imasuen — Imasuen, of Nigerian-Philippine descent and based in Nigeria, is Fedi’s Global Marketing Manager and a “bitcoin only gamer” who often speaks in support of THNDR Games. When Imasuen wasn’t touring the world talking about his work in 2024, you could hear him as a podcast guest or on live broadcasts.
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 (Uganda Community Manager for Bitcoin Dada and supporter of Bitcoin Kampala), Sabina Gitau (founder of Tando, based in Kenya), Efrat Fenigson (host of “You’re The Voice” podcast, based in Israel)
And I’ll give a quick shout out to some of the badass women who crushed it this year from Europe, the US or elsewhere: Caitlin Long (CEO in the US of Custodia Bank started a lawsuit against the Federal Reserve in 2024) , Susie Violet Ward (UK Bitcoin reporter and CEO of Bitcoin Policy UK has written extensively on the dangers of over-regulating the Bitcoin industry in the UK and Europe this year), Umi Miyahara (Japanese-American leader Business Development at Breez, who helped organize a new partnership for Breez in 2024), DJ Valerie B Love (a US founder who presented an amazing conference this year), NiftyNei (who founded the Base58 education platform this year), Gloria Zhao ( Bitcoin core dev who is doing a great job of integrating how Bitcoin works), Ella Hugh (who helped Cornell University launch the first independent program focused on on Bitcoin) and L0la L33tz (an independent journalist who has done an amazing job covering privacy as it pertains to Bitcoin and crypto in his publication The Rage).
I know there are countless women in the Bitcoin space that I don’t even know about CoinTelegraph agreed.
To those ladies, I apologize for not being able to include you in this piece, but thank you for your work and contributions to the Bitcoin space.
This article is a Take it. The views expressed are entirely those of the author and do not reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.