Crypto Guapcoin Amplifies Voices of the Black Community

In 2015, Tavonia Evans was driving to various tech conferences across the U.S., pitching to investors to drum up funding for her startup. Safe2Meet is a peer-to-peer platform that identifies and verifies individuals' background information. After several months, one notion eventually dawned on Evans, mother of eight and grandmother to two: Getting funding as a Black woman wasn’t going to be easy. Being a woman of color in the startup world is rare. Only 4% of tech founders are women of color, and only 3% of the computing tech force in the U.S. are women of color. “We have seats, they just aren't in the forefront,” said Evans. “They are largely invisible ones.” Finding Gender Parity at the Intersection of Venture and Crypto After almost two years, Safe2Meet was eventually shelved. Crypto for the Black community Hoping to change the narrative, Evans—a technologist who had some knowledge of crypto—launched Guapcoin, the first Black-founded and first Black-woman founded crypto, in 2017. Guapcoin aims to impact minority small businesses by keeping track of the community's spending habits. Studies show that the lifespan of the dollar is just six hours in Black communities. More income needs to stay within the community to lessen the wealth gap. “This is something that will solve a lot of the problems within our community,” said Evans. "The blockchain is a lens on how to keep the money circulating in the community." Guapcoin first launched on the decentralized, open-source blockchain Ethereum. In five months, Evans built her own blockchain to run Guapcoin. “You don't hear a lot of women saying that they're building their own blockchain,” Olayinka Odeniran, founder of Black Women Blockchain Council, told Adweek. “And to meet a Black woman doing so is mind-blowing.” In five years, a long time in the crypto world, Guapcoin has over 10,000 wallet holders and has outlasted many cryptos in the industry. Guapcoin will soon launch its own decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that runs on blockchain, doing away with central leadership and emphasizing its roots in the power of community. Guapcoin is in talks with Visa to allow debit cards to automatically convert crypto for transactions. However, it’s not always plain sailing. The Black community is less familiar with the concept of blockchain, said Evans. Early on, she would help people in the community buy Guapcoin by building nodes on their computers that would run copies of the blockchain and help process transactions. “It didn't seem like anything to me,” said Evans. “But when I look back, I realized how much value that was for people.” Exposed to diverse cultures Born and raised in New York, Evans grew up with an international mindset. Her grandmother came from Barbados, her aunts, on her father's side, came from India and Mauritius. Being exposed to diverse cultures and religions was not unusual for Evans, leading her to address the gender and race gap in the crypto world. Evans graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in 1992 in New York. She is currently studying data science and analysis in crypto at Flatiron School. She also educates new women in fin tech via ed-tech platforms like classrebel.com. “Her wealth of knowledge and [her] contribution to necessary discussions we're having in this space makes her stand out," said Odeniran. For Evans, who digs into her own pocket whenever the company faces financial difficulties, the journey of a founder has been bittersweet. But, being her own cheerleader helps with the uphill battles, she said. “There's nothing to fear now. There's so much of a support system out there,” she said, encouraging women to be fearless in their ventures. “Vocalize yourself and let people know you’re in the industry.”