At first glance, throwing web3 and AI into a headline can seem like a bad example of buzzword soup, practice for media companies trying to play the algorithms (and your attention) by using a lot of today’s most sought -after words. But Coindesk has followed the slow integration of applications that track large amounts of data on a public blockchain and the artificial intelligence capable of making sense of this data for a decade.
In the first ever Coindesk Top Women in Web3 & AI list, we consulted a panel of female judges respecting in their fields to create what we believe is a strong list that captures the moment zeitgeist.
Parallel revolutions
What we are witnessing are two parallel technological revolutions – Blockchain’s promise of decentralization and AI’s jump towards transforming how we work, create and build the world. Although these fields may seem different, they share something crucial: they both transform the basic infrastructure of our digital future.
The timing of this convergence is not random. As AI requires an ever-increasing calculation power and data access, and as blockchain networks are looking for new use cases beyond cryptocurrency, the two fields naturally cut in areas such as data cancellation, distributed computing and digital identity.
Larger AI companies are investigating blockchain-based solutions for data price. Crypto projects integrate AI for everything from fraud to agent. A brand new field of web3, called decentralized artificial intelligence (DEAI), utilizes the huge amount of power used to revise Blockchains to train AI models capable of competing with centralized solutions.
The authors of tomorrow
The technology sector’s gender gap is well documented, especially in new fields such as Blockchain and AI. While the causes are complex, from educational pipeline questions to workplace culture, the result is that women remain markedly under -represented in both areas.
Then there’s the list. These 50 notable women are not footnotes in the story of new technology – they are its authors. They build protocols and platforms, leading to billions of dollars startups and designing global control frames. They do this while navigating systems that are never designed with them in mind, bringing empathy, creativity and uncompromising rigor to the most critical questions of our time.
AI and Blockchain are two sides of the same coin – one built on probable reasoning and the other on cryptographic security. Ai interprets and predicts the world; Blockchain verifies and retains it. One thrives on inference, the other on immutability. Together, they offer a plan for a future that is both adaptive and responsible, generative and fair.
This list was brought to life through a collaboration between Coindesk and Proof of Talk, which hosts Xventures. As part of its annual summit – held this year in Paris at the Louvre Palace – Proof of Talk is convened a number of players across Blockchain and AI ecosystems: Founders, investors, decision makers and academics helping shape the field in both areas in the coming years.
With AI development that accelerates globally and blockchain applications such as stableecoins, which are gaining institutional adoption, European commitment to both technical development and policy formation has become increasingly important for the region’s broader technological competitiveness. Web3 & AI are really global and each region contributes and competes.
Selection methodology
To ensure that the selection process for the list was as objective as possible, we sought more, different perspectives.
An initial public outreach of several social media platforms and to our deeply obtained expert analysts resulted in more than 300 nominations from any geographical region. After removing the name and contact information from each nomination, Coindesk’s editorial board narrowed the candidates to 100 semi -finalists. A panel with five judges then reviewed the resulting list of semi -finalists looking for the rare combination of innovation, relevance and influence. Each judge reviewed carefully 20 candidates and provided crucial feedback to the final selection process.
The judges were: Julia Bonafede, co -founder of the investment management company, Rosetta Analytics; Olivia Bolec, Google’s Enterprise Global Account Director; Sarah Idahosa, founder of Women in Defi; Saruul Krause-Sjentsch, head of Podcast in Spotify for Central Europe; and Amélie M., founder and president of the French branch of the Association of Women in Crypto.
In the end, it was the Coindesk editorial, myself included, who carefully underwent the resulting feedback, making the difficult decision of the 50 leaders to be recognized.
Instead of focusing solely on technical innovation, the list recognizes that the development of new technologies involves several types of expertise – from product development and business strategy to regulatory compliance and ethical frameworks. As both web3 and AI move from experimental phases towards wider adoption, these different perspectives are becoming increasingly important.
See the full list here.
