As women are climbing the corporate ladder in the technology industry, working in the cryptocurrency market could actually be a missed opportunity.

But the story is different for Margaux Avedisian (pictured), executive vice president at Transform Group LLC and partner and co-founder at CooLPool Fund, as she was among the first female bitcoin leaders to gain influence  in 2012.

“Being a woman in this industry is great,” she said. “I can say whatever I want, calling out the elephant in the room where most men can’t.”

Avedisian spoke with John Furrier (@furrier) and Dave Vellante (@dvellante), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, at the Polycon18 event in the Bahamas. She discussed her personal background and the lack of women executives in the cryptocurrency industry.

Promoting women

Avedisian learned bitcoin rapidly and on the fly, meeting with industry leaders who knew the ins and outs in 2012.  She met with one of the co-founders of YouTube who was into bitcoin and had a fund, learned the ways of the American Bitcoin exchange, and eventually co-founded multiple cryptocurrency exchanges.

A big part of the problem is communicating to people about cryptocurrency outside of all the technical jargon, instead of being able to focus on the business uses, according to Avedisian. Having worked public relations for bitcoin and blockchain initial coin offerings, she has seen these business uses firsthand, alongside the industry’s evolution.

Yet one aspect of cryptocurrency hasn’t evolved far enough. She feels the industry needs to pay more attention to women’s accomplishments thus far. Despite the Polycon18 conference hosting a Women in Blockchain panel, Avedisian considers this appeasement a segregated and limiting approach. There are females who have years of experience under their belt who can share personal perspectives and lessons to a wider audience, she explained. The founders of two biggest ICOs — Bancor and Tezos — are females.

“The jobs are out there,” she said. “It’s about being able to get these women who want to do this and connecting them to opportunities.”

Here’s the complete video interview, and there’s much more SiliconANGLE and theCUBE coverage of Polycon18.

Photo: SiliconANGLE