Tavonia Evans

"I am a founder, blockchain engineer, technologist, and entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience."

"I am the Founder and Creator of Guapcoin, a cryptocurrency focused on closing the wealth gap and providing access to crypto for African Americans, Latinx people, and the global African Diaspora."

"I am the Co-Founder of Block4Hire.com, a platform that connects blockchain talent with budding entrepreneurs and companies."

"I am the CTO of Black Wall Street, a cryptocurrency wallet and community aimed at empowering investors of color."

"The biggest challenge I faced was one of the exact adversaries I was attempting to solve."

"It is the access to funding for founders of colors."

"This was my second startup, it was during my first startup, a company called 'Safe2meet', a P2P verification platform, that I discovered that Black women get less than 1% of VC or capital funding for their companies."

"It was disheartening that my partner and I despite being two successful black women in tech could not raise the money we needed to scale our MVP."

"This led me to launch Guapcoin, which I felt could eventually open up more capital and more options for people like me."

"After all crypto Guapcoin is essentially money, and as the days go by, it becomes closer and closer to becoming accepted as legal tender everywhere."

"My final challenge was finding blockchain talent and resources to support our project."

"Blockchain resources are scarce in our industry because technology is evolving at a fast pace."

"I had to hire offshore resources on a shoestring budget."

"I found myself managing hundreds of servers and also having to provide tech support all while running an organization for some time."

"I would describe it as digital money or virtual currency."

"It's very, very close to the virtual currencies we use in gaming."

"There are games that actually have virtual currency that have real value in the real world, Second Life’s in game currency, Linden dollar, is trading in the real world against other currencies."

"People have created value with those things."

"If they want them and there is a demand, then it will naturally have value."

"It is usually distributed through a blockchain, which is referred to as decentralized."

"Cryptocurrency is peer to peer, so you're not having all of these middle processors like banks involved, and transactions are faster."

"If you are using your debit card or your credit card, it's really not instant settlement."

"They make it look like it, but it's not that's why people can file chargebacks or have pending transactions."

"What crypto does is provide instant settlement,"

"Once you send it, that's it, unless they send it back to you."

"It really is less red tape than moving money, therefore making it more affordable than services like Western Union or MoneyGram."

"It could actually be cheaper in the long run for you to use crypto to move money to people across the world."

"That’s one of the things that differentiates it from paper money."

"Decentralized cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and Ethereum these are exchangeable and they can be spent."

"They have a value that's consistent across the world, across markets."

"You also have something called stable coins, virtual currencies that are mapped to government-issued currencies."

"Their value is a lot less volatile, because of the underlying currency that's backing it if stable coins are backed by U.S. dollars, their value is going to be roughly around the same value as a dollar."

"When I first heard about blockchain, I didn't think it was for me."

"I was attracted to the art, and realised artists can be a part of this, and that it can be an inclusive space for women and people of colour."

"NFTs give people who haven't had the opportunity to invest in or sell their art the traditional way."

"Crypto and NFTs are a path to financial independence, so it's important that women and girls know about them"