Kaitlin Argeaux did not come into crypto through engineering or finance. Her starting point was the arts. She worked in theatre, where creativity, communication and presence shaped the work. In 2017, that changed. An old university flatmate was building a start-up around decentralised identity and blockchain. After several conversations, she left her day job, joined the company and moved from directing plays to running ICOs in a market with no regulatory framework and a team of four.
That move set the terms for the work that followed. Argeaux learned in a start-up environment where speed mattered, roles shifted quickly and leadership was tested in real time. It also brought her into an industry where women, particularly women coming from non-adjacent sectors, were still rare. She says that has changed over time. At CryptoMondays London, where she is founder and chief executive, she now sees a broader mix of women attending events and entering the sector across race, age, background, religion and career path.
“I quit my day job, joined his startup, and went from directing plays to running ICOs with zero regulatory framework and a team of four. The start-up world operates in that intense motion. You learn to lead fast in that environment.”
Week 34 – Kaitlin Argeaux CEO/Founder of CryptoMondays London
Argeaux’s account of leadership is rooted in that experience. She came into Web3 at speed, without the conventional background, and built from there. That is part of the reason she remains interested in the idea of meritocracy in crypto. One of the attractions of the sector, she says, was the belief that pseudonymity and open-source contribution could make entry fairer, particularly for women. The theory remains attractive. The practice, in her view, is more mixed.
She is direct about the gap between Web3’s claims and its structures. Capital still tends to flow to the same networks. Visibility still tends to favour the same profiles. The language of decentralisation may be new, but access and opportunity have not been fully redistributed. Argeaux does not dismiss the technology. She does, however, separate what the technology makes possible from what the ecosystem has actually delivered.
“We’ve decentralised the ledger, but we haven’t fully decentralised access or opportunity.”
That distinction runs through much of her thinking. Decentralisation, in itself, does not remove bias. It creates a framework within which different choices can be made, but those choices still depend on the people building the sector. What gives her confidence is not the technology alone, but the community layer around it. Relationships, education and repeated participation still shape who gets in, who stays and who advances. Those are not fixed. They can be built differently.
Her own experience in leadership reflects the same realities. Argeaux says her authority has been challenged often enough that the pattern is familiar. What stays with her are not always the overt moments, but the small ones: the raised eyebrow when a woman speaks with authority, the instinct to direct the email elsewhere, the assumption that someone else is the visionary and she is merely organising the room. Her response has changed over time. Where she once over-prepared to compensate, she now relies on results.
“I used to over-prepare to compensate. Now I just lead, and let the work do the talking.”
That line also explains much about CryptoMondays London. Argeaux does not present community as a soft layer around the serious work. For her, community is the work. Blockchain may be designed to reduce the need for trust at protocol level, but the people building businesses, networks and projects still depend on trust in the ordinary sense. Her leadership style is based less on hierarchy than on relationships. She is interested in where people have come from, why they entered the sector and what they are trying to build. Her theatre background remains relevant here. It taught her the value of making people feel seen. In Web3, she says, that translates well.
“Blockchain is designed to remove the need for trust, yet the communities around it run entirely on it.”
That emphasis on people rather than posture is also central to how Argeaux speaks about entry into Web3. She rejects the idea that the technical nature of the sector should keep women out. Her own route into crypto came from the creative arts, not from writing smart contracts. What mattered, she says, was curiosity, people skills and the ability to learn quickly. In a sector where only 13 per cent of founding teams are women, according to a BCG X report she cites, those qualities matter because they open the door to roles beyond pure engineering.
Argeaux’s advice is practical. Find the point of entry that fits. That may be law, finance, marketing, creativity or community building. The important thing is to enter the room, ask questions and begin building relationships early. She argues that Web3 still offers a chance to start afresh in a way that earlier waves of technology often did not. Rather than waiting to be invited in, women are founding companies, building their own networks and backing one another’s projects.
“Don’t let the technical barrier become a story you tell yourself about why you don’t belong here.”
Her work also moves between very different settings. CryptoMondays is grassroots by design, without hierarchy or gatekeeping. At the same time, Argeaux has worked in more formal institutional spaces and sees value in both. In her account, grassroots spaces are where trust is built. Institutional spaces are where ideas are legitimised and scaled. The ability to move between the two is a leadership skill in itself. It requires judgement, different forms of communication and an understanding of when to lead with data and when to lead with narrative.
That matters because regulation and governance are being shaped now. Argeaux is clear that if women are absent from those conversations, the structures that emerge will not reflect them. The same applies to culture. Community spaces set norms early, and those norms become difficult to correct later. Women therefore need to be present in both places: where the rules are being written and where the habits of the industry are being formed.
Her position on AI and blockchain follows the same line. Female perspectives, she says, should be integrated into ethical frameworks not as a gesture but because their absence is a design flaw. Bias does not sit only in data. It also sits in the assumptions of the people building systems. Web3, in her view, still has a window that traditional tech did not. Infrastructure is still being built. Governance is still contested. That leaves room for different voices to shape outcomes before they harden into convention.
Argeaux also speaks plainly about support systems. Early on, being brought into her friend’s start-up gave her a direct education in scale, business and entrepreneurship through a technical lens. That experience informed the model she later built at CryptoMondays London: a place where people can learn, connect and find their route into the sector. For the next generation, she wants more accessible education, more communities where questions can be asked without embarrassment, and more funding for female-led projects. She also makes another point that matters. Diversity discussions cannot be left to women speaking to rooms full of women. Men need to be in those rooms too, hiring, investing and backing female leadership in practical ways.
The article of faith in Argeaux’s answers is simple. Web3 will not become more open by saying that it is open. It will become more open when people build communities, companies and systems that make entry possible, leadership visible and support practical. Her own career, from theatre to crypto and from start-up work to one of London’s largest crypto communities, reflects that approach. It is not built on abstraction. It is built on showing up, learning quickly and doing the work.
Three tips from Kaitlin Argeaux
- Prioritise learning and ask questions. Curiosity is an asset in Web3.
- Show up consistently. Credibility is built through presence and contribution over time.
- Ask for help. Web3 runs on community, and relationships matter.
