Web3 was built around the idea that access should no longer depend on traditional institutions. Anyone can create a wallet, transfer an asset, enter a community or interact with a decentralised financial protocol. Yet technical access does not necessarily produce equal participation, particularly when the products and communities built on top of the technology continue to reflect familiar patterns of power.
SheFI
Maggie Love has spent much of her career addressing that gap. Love is the founder of SheFi, an education and community platform that has introduced more than 33,000 women across over 100 countries to digital assets and emerging technologies. She began developing the idea in 2019, when blockchain education remained limited and few people were creating learning environments specifically designed to help women participate.
For Love, leadership began with the willingness to express a view and build something before there was an established model to follow.
“The first part of leadership is being willing to go out there and try something, to be first and to have a point of view,” she says. “When I started the idea in 2019, there was limited blockchain education. You have to be willing to take that jump and continue building through the positive and negative reactions. It does not matter whether people think you have the skills or meet their criteria. It matters that you believe you need to do it.”
Being first also exposed Love to criticism, particularly from people who questioned why a community or educational initiative for women was necessary. She continued because the work was tied to a purpose larger than the organisation itself.
“You have to believe in something bigger than what you are doing,” she says. “You have to be mission-driven to do this for seven years in an industry that is still very male-dominated. I work in education, large-scale events and community building, but the larger mission is that every woman should participate in the future.”
Frontier is Feminine
Love summarises that mission in a phrase that has become central to SheFi: “The frontier is feminine.”
Her leadership philosophy is also rooted in responsibility. She believes leaders must accept ownership of what happens within their organisations, including situations in which a team member, partner or participant has not received what they needed.
“Everything is the leader’s responsibility,” she says. “If someone did not do something, perhaps you did not communicate it in the right way. If a partner for an event was not happy, you have to own it. Leadership is really about owning everything.”
That does not mean micromanaging employees or controlling every decision. Instead, it requires the leader to ask what conditions could have enabled another person to succeed.
“If you are frustrated about something, you have to look at yourself and ask: where could I have made this person more successful? Where could I have made this partner happier, and how am I going to make it right? I believe in extreme ownership. That is how I lead.”
The question of ownership is equally relevant to Web3 itself. Blockchain can allow individuals to hold and move assets without relying on a conventional bank account or centralised intermediary. In principle, the infrastructure is open to anyone.
“Anybody can trade, anybody can swap, anybody can lend and anybody can enter these communities,” says Love. “The technology is inherently neutral.”
The difficulty emerges when people build organisations, products and markets on top of that infrastructure. Technology may be decentralised, but the people using it can recreate the same hierarchies found in traditional finance and technology.
“When you have humans on top of anything, or humans in control of it, power dynamics and structures that are comfortable, well known and self-soothing emerge,” she says. “Just because something is technically available to people does not mean they know anything about it or that they can participate.”
Love believes Web3 still has considerable work to do if it is to challenge the power structures of the centralised world. Crypto has increasingly turned its attention towards institutional finance and speculative trading, but these priorities will not necessarily attract or serve everyone who could benefit from the underlying technology.
Technology and People
“The technology offers many opportunities, but the people building on top of it are not necessarily bringing those same values,” she says. “When we set up organisations, build technology or market only to a certain group, we start to see that we are not really equal in that way. Humans are messy coordinators.”
Education is therefore central to meaningful participation. Love does not assume that people must arrive with a technical background. She believes complex concepts can be made understandable when educators take responsibility for connecting them to ideas that are already familiar.
“Everybody knows certain concepts that are only one degree away from something technical,” she says. “You have to take the time to create an analogy that makes sense.”
This approach extends across the different audiences SheFi serves. Love has taught grassroots communities as well as employees within large institutions, including Fidelity Center for Applied Technology. The underlying knowledge may be similar, but the context and delivery change.
For community learners, a course might use accessible titles and concentrate on consumer or retail applications. Within an institution, the same foundations may be presented as blockchain or wallet fundamentals and connected to the organisation’s work in digital assets.
“At the end of the day, everyone needs to be armed with the same education and understanding,” says Love. “It is the same education, with slightly different delivery mechanisms based on the audience.”
She also brings each lesson back to purpose. Rather than concentrating exclusively on lower fees, trading features or technical specifications, she asks why the technology matters and what value it can create.
“Every class I teach has a section on why it matters,” she says. “Why are we talking about blockchain? Why are we talking about a distributed ledger? Why are we talking about how a private key secures your wallet? I always bring it back to why it matters.”
That emphasis shapes how Love communicates and builds partnerships. She looks for mutual value and a clear reason to work together, rather than treating growth as an end in itself.
Collaboration
“What are the benefits? Why does it matter? What is the value, and how can we do something together? I am very collaborative in the way that I communicate.”
Love says her authority has not generally been challenged directly because she is a woman. The criticism she has encountered has focused more often on the existence of a women-centred community. Her response has been to continue demonstrating the value of the work.
She takes a similarly broad view of questions about artificial intelligence and ethics. Responsibility cannot be transferred entirely to technologists, governments or former employees who warn about potential dangers without giving the public a useful way to respond. People with direct knowledge should explain the risks clearly, while citizens must place pressure on regulators and political representatives to act.
For Love, participation in emerging technology begins with literacy, but it develops through practice and human relationships. Decentralisation may remove some institutional barriers, yet people still need the confidence to use the technology and a community in which they can become known.
Technology can create an open door. Education, experience and relationships determine who feels able to walk through it.
Three tips from Maggie Love
1. Choose one subject that genuinely interests you
“Pick one thing that you are curious about. You do not have to boil the ocean. Find the thing you cannot stop researching, reading about or wanting to understand. It might be DeFi, consumer applications, real-world assets or tokenisation. Whatever it is, begin there.”
2. Use the technology yourself
“You have to do the thing. Download the wallet and make your first transaction. Those steps may feel scary because you are wondering whether the money will end up where it is supposed to go, but you need that practical experience.”
3. Become part of the community
“Go to meetups in your city. Attend crypto events, introduce yourself and do not be shy. Even though the industry is decentralised and virtual, it is still very peer-to-peer and human. Many of the people I have worked with met me in person, saw my work and built a relationship with me. Part of entering this space is being known.”
