Still today, millions of women throughout the developing world don’t have access to institutional financial services because cultural stigmas linger long after the laws on the books recognize women’s rights. According to the World Bank’s  Global Findex database, women in the developing economies are 20 percent less likely to have an account at a financial institution, and often even accounts under their names are  de facto controlled by male relatives. Roya Mahboob, one of  Afghanistan’s leading tech entrepreneurs, overcame this dilemma by paying female employees in bitcoin.

The early bitcoin advocate Mahboob was deemed one of the 100 most influential people in the world by  Time in 2013. Since then, she’s been busy supporting women technologists across Afghanistan, even sponsoring the  all-girls robotics team that recently overcame controversial visa restrictions to win second place at a competition in Washington D.C.

Maria Gomez, Head of Strategy and Operations at the blockchain startup Aragon, is already working on a network where entrepreneurs and remote employees can work with smart contracts and cryptocurrency without needing to understand the backend cryptography.