Women make up only 15% of bitcoin traders, highlighting the crypto world's glaring gender imbalance

• Only 15% of bitcoin traders are women, highlighting a massive gender imbalance in the world of cryptocurrency, according to new data from eToro.
• The situation is similar with ethereum, which saw the percentage of female investors slightly rise to 12% from 11% at the beginning of 2020.
• While the percentage of female investors slightly increased at the beginning of 2021, the number is dismally low.
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Only 15% of bitcoin traders are women, highlighting a massive gender imbalance in the world of cryptocurrency, according to new data from investment platform eToro.

While the percentage of female investors slightly increased from 10% at the beginning of 2020, indicating a demographic change amid a surge in the price of bitcoin, the number remains dismal.

The price of Bitcoin skyrocketed in 2020, prompting a wave of new investors to sign up to various trading platforms. Yet, new data reveals that the interest in cryptocurrencies still comes largely from men. The asset rose to nearly $30,000 at the end of the year, continuing its rise in early January, when it hit an all-time high of $41,826 in early January.

The situation is similar with ethereum, which saw the percentage of female investors rise slightly to 12% from 11% at the beginning of 2020.

"Technology is enabling more women to invest," Heloise Greef, a researcher at Oxford University who has been using eToro since 2016, told Insider. "Investing has typically been a preserve for an elite club but now that much of this has been pushed online by the pandemic, anyone with a thematic interest can join."

In December, eToro reported that women were signing up to their platform at faster rates than men. The platform reported a 366% rise in the number of women sign-ups compared to the 248% increase in male users.

Overall, data from eToro show a 106% increase in the number of people holding bitcoin on the trading platform at the end of January 2021 compared with the same period last year. Ethereum investors in eToro also climbed 82% year-on-year.

eToro, with over 18 million registered users since it was founded in 2007, is among the most well-known platforms for investing in cryptocurrencies, alongside Robinhood and Coinbase. App-based and commission-free trading platforms gained popularity in the past year, amidst a Reddit-fueled trading craze in select stock darlings from GameStop to AMC Entertainment.

Bitcoin rose as high as $38,346.61 on Friday as the world's most popular cryptocurrency faced the latest hurdle in its path back to record highs.