Women commit roughly five percent of code across the top 100 blockchain projects, exposing a glaring gender gap that the crypto industry can no longer afford to ignore.
A comprehensive study examining the top 100 blockchain projects in the cryptocurrency ecosystem has revealed a deep lack of gender diversification. Using data collected directly from GitHub, researchers found that women are committing only about five percent of all code. The journalist who conducted this study checked over one million code commits to identify participation rates of open-source contributors who could be identified as women, making this one of the most thorough analyses of its kind in the blockchain space.
According to the investigation, a total of 4.64% of contributors with female names appeared in the main branches for each of these projects. To put that in perspective, that percentage is not unusual in the broader cryptocurrency world. By collecting users' real names and identifying their gender through the Genderize service, the investigation checked a total of 1,026,804 lines of code across the repositories. The methodology was straightforward but effective, pulling publicly available data and cross-referencing it to build a clear picture of who is actually writing the code powering major blockchain networks.
The study focused on code in the most prominent projects in the blockchain space, and the results paint a stark picture. The database showed that 54 projects had fewer than 100 commits made by women, while 31 had fewer than ten. Not all users could be identified in the results, as some did not provide a real name in their account or had a name of ambiguous gender. Even accounting for those limitations, the overall percentage of confirmed male names was as high as 67.3%, and the remaining contributors whose gender could not be verified are unlikely to shift the overall picture meaningfully.
According to the study, more code changes signed by female developers were found in the blockchain project Bytom, as well as Asian projects like NEO and Theta Token. These outliers suggest that regional differences may play a role in shaping participation rates, though the sample size is too small to draw firm conclusions about geographic trends.
The numbers uncovered by this study are supported by statistics of gender disparity reported in previous research across the wider technology field. A separate study conducted by GitHub itself made clear that 95% of open-source collaborators were male. Companies like Circle and eToro have also published research confirming that women represent far less than half of the participants in the cryptocurrency and blockchain studies they have commissioned.
There is another dimension to this problem that the GitHub study highlighted. The lack of inclusion also creates real barriers for women who already work in tech, because many job search firms and hiring teams actively scan online open-source projects to find potential employees. When women are barely visible in those code repositories, they miss out on recruitment opportunities, speaking invitations, and the professional credibility that comes from public contributions. The gap feeds on itself.
A recent investigation also found that new blockchain startups had only 14.5% women as team members and just 7% in executive positions in recent years. Those numbers tell a story that stretches well beyond code commits. When leadership teams are overwhelmingly male, product decisions, marketing strategies, and company cultures tend to reflect that homogeneity. The industry loses perspectives that could help it reach broader audiences and design more inclusive financial tools.
The cryptocurrency sector has always prided itself on being open and accessible to anyone with an internet connection. The technology itself is neutral and borderless. But the people building it clearly are not a diverse group, and that matters. Blockchain projects that want to serve a global user base need development teams that reflect the diversity of the people they aim to serve. Until the industry acknowledges the scale of this gap and takes deliberate steps to address it, those participation numbers are unlikely to move on their own.
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