Women Prove They Belong in the Crypto World

Women Prove They Belong in the Crypto World

Long gone are the days when women played a back-seat role on Wall-Street, or in investments as a whole. Since 2009, the birth of Bitcoin has made financial investment more accessible, not just for the few, but for all. Women, as much as men, are curious to understand crypto and are ready to invest.

Traditional Finance

In our traditional system, there are countless challenges alongside levelling the investment playing field and achieving financial freedom. In 2020, the national gender pay gap in the United States was roughly 18%, with not a single US state paying females higher than males (on average). This resulted in increased difficulties for women attempting to build their 401k’s and plan for retirement in a way as effectively as men could. Due to the large disparities in active income, more women are looking for ways to invest in forms of passive income…cue cryptocurrencies.

How Crypto Supports Females

Decentralised finance allows for transactions to occur without passing through a third-party intermediary, granting individuals complete control and freedom over their own assets. This not only increases efficiency and affordability but provides a sense of security that is often overshadowed when interacting with third-party sources. Gemini conducted a survey that found among those planning to invest in crypto, 40% are women. Additionally, 39% of millennial women would be more interested in crypto if they knew it could make finance more accessible. Proving the intense need for women to feel empowered by their financial options and decisions.

Women in Crypto

Stats published by eToro showed only 15% of Bitcoin investors were women, however, this number had increased from 10% in 2020. Though only a small increase, this does show more women are becoming investors and this could be in part to the influence of women like Elizabeth Stark, and Katie Haun.

Elizabeth Stark redefined the cryptocurrency marketplace for women. This double-ivy league graduate co-founded the company Lightning Labs in 2016, a “second layer” protocol that helps run the blockchain more efficiently. One of Stark’s famous quotes is “Welcome to Bitcoin, you can’t tell people what to do.”

When speaking to Karen Hao of Quartz, Stark said “The perception that there are no women in bitcoin discourages women from getting involved.”

Katie Haun, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz was introduced to Bitcoin in the currency’s early days, utilising blockchain’s capabilities to investigate criminal activity. Haun was interviewed by Grace Hong from Business Today, where she was asked about how she got involved in crypto: “I was looking for something different, away from violent and organised crime, so my chief asked me to work on Bitcoin. I quickly realised it wasn’t something that could be prosecuted—that would be akin to saying ‘Let’s prosecute the internet’ or ‘Let’s prosecute cash.’ It’s not possible nor desirable. Instead, I set about looking at some of the cases that involved nefarious uses of cryptocurrencies.”

Haun then went on to tell Hong about the crypto task force she created in the Department of Justice, “I realised there’s a real need for bridges to be built between the crypto ecosystem on one hand, and the government, policymakers, and regulators, on the other hand. We discussed it within the Justice Department and decided we would create a task force in San Francisco.

“One purpose of the task force was to bring and investigate cases involving criminal uses of cryptocurrency. Another very important purpose was to help educate and facilitate understanding on all ends: government regulators, technologists, developers, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders in the crypto ecosystem. There was a liaison function and mutual cooperation.

“A third purpose was having a point of contact—a lot of times, the government’s first line of defence against the criminals in the community would be the people at crypto companies, and naturally, crypto companies also wanted a point of contact to go to. And finally, the task force was the training ground to keep prosecutors and other government agents up to speed with developments in the sector.”

Flashforward a decade and Haun is serving as an independent director on the board for the billion-dollar company, Coinbase. Her crypto advice reads, “Don’t let yourself think ‘Oh, it’s too complex, I don’t want to go dive deep in it.’ You don’t need to dive deep into it, just go learn something about it that you didn’t know.” Haun encourages all individuals to be patient with the crypto space as it is ever-changing and evolving. Having seen the success that Haun has had, it is likely many more women will be inspired to get involved in crypto.

Coinbase competitor Blockchain.com raises $300 million in crypto funding frenzy

TipRanks

Every investor knows that the path toward profits lies in buying low and selling high. That’s a basic precept of any economic trading system. The trick, however, is recognizing when the stock is low enough to buy in. The prime moment to buy is when the stock hits bottom; that will maximize returns when the share price starts to rise again. There are a multitude of possible clues investors can use to find the price bottom; today, we’ll be looking at insider buying trends. Insiders – the corporate officers, board members, and others ‘in the know’ – don’t just manage the companies, they know the details. Legally, they are not supposed to trade that knowledge, or to blatantly trade on it, and disclosure rules by government regulators help to keep the insiders honest. Their honest stock transactions, however, can be highly informative. These are the people with the deepest knowledge of particular stocks. So, when they buy or sell, especially in bulk, take note. In this case, we’ve used the TipRanks Insiders’ Hot Stocks tool to find two stocks whose price has dropped recently – and that drop has coincided with some ‘informative buy’ insider trades. Let’s take a closer look. Intercept Pharma (ICPT) We’ll start in the pharmaceutical sector, with Intercept, a specialist in the treatment of chronic liver conditions. Intercept Pharma is working to develop treatment for several chronic and serious diseases of the liver, including primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). The company’s chief compound, obeticholic acid (OCA), was developed as an analog of the CDCA bile acid, and can play a role in treating liver conditions through the FXR receptor pathway. OCA, also called Ocaliva, has received approval by the US FDA and in Europe for use to treat PBC. Intercept has, in recent months, seen important changes. First, the company has experienced churn in the upper management. Effective this past January 1, the company’s COO Jerome Durso stepped up to the CEO post, and earlier this month CFO Sandip Kapadia announced that he will step down on March 26. His position will be filled on an acting basis by Rocco Venezia as an interim measure. On the business side, the company reported 4Q20 results at the end of February. The release showed significant gains in worldwide sales of OCA. Q4 net sales reached $83.3 million, up 18% year-over-year, and the full year sales grew 25% yoy to reach $312.7 million. The company gave guidance toward $325 million to $355 million for 2021 net sales of OCA. On a negative note, the EPS net loss in Q4 was worse than expected, coming in at $1.58 against a forecast loss of $1.47. And, while the OCA sales were up from last year, quarterly revenue was also below expectations. After the earnings release, the stock fell 19%. That loss came on top of a difficult 9 months for Intercept. The stock is down ~74% over that period. The run of losses started last June, when the FDA rejected an application for approval of OCA to treat NASH-related liver fibrosis. OCA is currently undergoing an extensive Phase 3 trial for this condition, to back new applications for approval by the end of this year. There are no current medications for the treatment of NASH and its complications, and Intercept anticipates the market could reach $5 billion in annual sales. Turning to the insider trading, we see that Srinivas Akkaraju, of the Board of Directors, purchased 237,000 shares of ICPT in three tranches between March 10 and March 12. The total cost came to $5.02 million, and Akkarju’s stake in the company is now worth $13.95 million. Looking to the future, Wedbush’s Liana Moussatos remains cautiously optimistic. The 5-star analyst rates ICPT an Outperform (i.e. Buy), and her $88 price target implies an impressive upside of 331% over the next 12 months. (To watch Moussatos’ track record, click here) “We are making multiple adjustments to our model. Management plans to resubmit the OCA/NASH NDA to the FDA by YE:21. Consequently, we pushed our U.S. launch date for OCA/NASH from 7/15/2022 to 2/15/2023 to allow enough time to fulfill FDA requirements and commercial preparations. We decreased our estimated treatable PBC population from about 34K to 32K due to the impact of potential OCA/PBC label changes for patients reaching the most advanced stages of PBC,” Moussatos noted. Moussatos is the bullish outlier here; Wall Street’s analyst corps is clearly divided on this stock, as shown by the breakdown of the 14 recent reviews. These include 6 Buys, 7 Holds, and 1 Sell, making the consensus rating a Moderate Buy. Shares are priced at $20.40 and the average price target of $43.33 suggests an upside of 112% from that level. (See ICPT stock analysis on TipRanks) Kinsale Capital Group (KNSL) Shifting gears, we’ll move over to the insurance industry, where Kinsale Capital is a provider of excess and surplus lines insurance products. These are policies which customers take out to protect against ‘excess’ risk, or risks that are too high for their regular insurance company. Kinsale focuses exclusively on these high-risk insurance products, and keeps control of both its claims and underwriting processes. Kinsale has seen significant growth in both revenues and earnings over the past year. At the top line, revenues in 4Q20 were up 51% to $139.33 million, and EPS, at $1.65 per share based on $38.2 million in net income, was up 109% from the prior year. For the full year, Kinsale’s revenues reached $459.88 million, a gain of 45% year-over-year. Full year EPS rose from $2.86 in 2019 to $3.87 in 2020, a yoy gain of 35%. The gains in revenues and income were driven by increases in all of the company’s main business segments. For both the quarter and the full year, Kinsale saw significant increases in gross written premiums, net investment income, underwriting income, and operating return on equity. The company finished 2020 with $1.3 billion in cash and invested assets, up 44% from December 2019. Despite the sound results reported, KNSL shares are down over the past three months. The shares peaked in mid-December, and have lost 35% since then. The drop in share price has not discouraged Steven Bensinger, from the company’s Board of Directors, from increasing his holding. On March 10, Bensinger bought two tranches of stock totaling 3,500 shares, paying $607,000. This brings his full holding in the company to more than 30,000 shares, valued at over $5.3 million. Wall Street likes this insurance company, and Casey Alexander, covering the company for Compass Point, lays out a solid bull case. “We continue to believe that the basic fundamental picture remains positive for KNSL. E&S premiums growth continues strong (46% YoY) and underwriting is strongly profitable, leading to an industry-leading combined ratio… KNSL also claims a technology-enabled expense advantage over peers that should lead to additional reserve redundancy. KNSL is making some inroads to the insuretech space, although moving cautiously while this new paradigm develops,” Alexander opined. Alexander rates the stock a Buy, and puts a $225 price target that indicates room for 39% upside in the year ahead. (To watch Alexander’s track record, click here) Solid results in a traditional finance sector like insurance will always get a thumbs up on Wall Street, so it is not surprising to see that the Strong Buy consensus rating here is unanimous, based on 3 recent reviews. The stock has an average price target of $235, for a 45% upside potential from the current share price of $161.94. (See KNSL stock analysis on TipRanks) To find good ideas for stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’ Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.

Here’s one way to find out everything you need to know about bitcoin and the crypto revolution underway

A financial paradigm shift may be evolving right under our very noses.

The very nature of money, and in many cases financial markets, is changing and it is easy to miss it in all the fuss over the daily price fluctuations of bitcoin BTCUSD, -3.62% and dogecoin, and the nascent assets’ similarities to the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s and Tulip mania of the 1600s.

See: Bitcoin could become ‘outlawed the way gold was outlawed’ in 1934, speculates Bridgewater’s Dalio

But as the prologue to Paul Vigna and Michael Casey’s 2015 book “The Age of Cryptocurrency” states, bitcoin “is here to stay, and you ignore it at your peril.” There’s a reason major companies, including Tesla TSLA, -4.82% , PayPal PYPL, -3.90% and Microstrategy MSTR, -8.22% , have been investing billions in bitcoin in recent months. It isn’t quite clear if the reasons are good ones.

But as billionaire Ray Dalio told Yahoo Finance in an interview that aired Wednesday, bitcoin — and in many ways the broader blockchain complex — “has proven itself over the last 10 years…it’s by and large worked on an operational basis…those are the pluses.”

Read: Bitcoin climbs as Elon Musk says Americans can now use it to buy a Tesla

No one knows what the future holds for cryptographic assets, but MarketWatch’s aim will be to explore what the emergence of digital tokens and bitcoin mean for your wallet in a two-day event to be held April 7 and 14 at 1 p.m. Eastern.

Register for MarketWatch’s Investing in Crypto here

MarketWatch and Barron’s journalists will convene top experts in crypto, including Galaxy Digital’s Michael Novogratz; Securities and Exchange Commissioner Hester Peirce; Sheila Warren, deputy head of C4IR at the World Economic Forum, and other financial pros to highlight the latest in the nascent sector and discuss what the outcropping of institutional interest in virtual currency and blockchain portend for Main Street and Wall Street — and the best strategies for prospective digital-currency buyers.

Check out: Tesla shopping with bitcoin represents ‘major step’ for crypto, analyst says

The sessions will be moderated by reporters and editors from MarketWatch and Barron’s, with the hope of helping readers navigate the rapidly evolving digital landscape.

Where are the crypto markets headed? Will the U.S. finally have a bitcoin exchange-traded fund in 2021? How are central bankers thinking about digital dollars?

All those questions, and many more, will be explored.