As missiles and drones streaked across the Gulf skies and global markets watched with anxiety, one thing defied expectations: Bitcoin went up. For Kelly Ann Collins, founder of Women in Blockchain Fund and host of SheCrypto, this wasn’t a surprise.
As a former journalist, Kelly knows a thing or two about upheavals and crises. She brings her insights gained over the years covering geopolitics for some of the biggest media brands in the world, to the chaotic world of crypto.
Crypto as insurance during a crisis
Speaking to Coin Headlines from Washington DC during one of the most turbulent geopolitical weeks in recent memory, Kelly offered a calm, measured take on why blockchain technology is increasingly being seen not as a speculative gamble but as a financial lifeline.
“It is recovering faster than it did at the start of what was happening in Ukraine,” she observed, “because I think people are now seeing that when you’re in a region where something’s happening or it’s under fire, the banks, your money, you can’t access anything.”
The lesson, she argues, has been building for years.
“In Russia, when things were happening, people couldn’t access their money through ATMs. People quickly discovered that the blockchain does not disappear when a crisis happens.”
It is a statement that cuts against the popular narrative of crypto as a volatile, speculative asset class. In Collin’s view, the volatility or price is separate from the reliability of the underlying infrastructure. When centralized systems – governments, banks, borders – fail, decentralized technology keeps running.
“When you have blockchain and you have your money in crypto, you can access that when all the banks are closed or not there,” she said simply.
Trump, regulation, and the pushback from traditional finance
The geopolitical backdrop is just one front in what Collins sees as a broader battle over the future of money. On the domestic front in the US, the policy picture is equally charged.
President Donald Trump arrived in the White House wearing the mantle of the ‘crypto president,’ and Collins acknowledges he has delivered direction.
“I do see this administration making moves in that direction, making it easier for them to do it,” she said. But she is measured about the pace and the obstacles.
The sticking points are familiar: the CLARITY Act, the GENIUS Act, stablecoin yields, and fierce resistance from incumbent financial institutions who see decentralized finance as an existential threat.
“Traditional finance, if they don’t move in the direction of crypto, Bitcoin, and blockchain, they’ll be behind,” Collins said. “And so they need to do it.”
In the end, consumer pressure and market dynamics will set the tone.
“Your parents or grandparents, they want to invest their retirement money in Bitcoin. They’re going to go to the bank that will help them do that.”
The financial institutions that refuse to move with the times, will simply get left behind.
On the question of whether Trump can fully deliver within his term against the headwinds of lobbying and legislative inertia, Collins remains optimistic.
“I think we’re moving in that direction and I think they will do it.” She pointed to a recent DC event where government officials from multiple offices were actively discussing blockchain integration. “There were lots of people from lots of government offices and they’re talking about how they’re working toward that and working to integrate blockchain.”
For her the most striking vision for the government adapting to blockchain is not about financial regulation but about transparency.
“I think that would be really interesting to the public if all the government funds were on blockchain and you could just look and see where they’re going,” she said.
Women in crypto: The silent revolution within Web3
Collins entered crypto the same way many others did. A family tip. Small investment. Lot of confusion.
“Around 2016-2017, I had heard of Bitcoin and that’s when I entered crypto. It was actually my cousin who got Bitcoin for me and told me that I needed it. He just said, ‘Give me $1,000.’ I had no idea, really, what it was until lockdowns in 2020.”
As the world was hit by COVID, Collins found herself on Twitter Spaces, absorbing, participating, then speaking.
“One of the things I noticed at the time is that there weren’t a whole lot of women in the space. So I was trying to get more women in. And then when they started coming in, I noticed they didn’t really want to talk and they didn’t want to be on the panels. So I kept encouraging them.”
This became her personal obsession. A movement. SheCrypto, her media platform, and Women in Blockchain, her non profit fund, now work together to amplify voices and provide infrastructure to bring women into conferences, panel discussions, and boardrooms.
“Last year we partnered with the Bitcoin conference and we took, it ended up being more than 200 women to the Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas through a partnership with them which was valued at more than $70,000. I think it ended up being around $100,000 from them.”
The goal of these partnerships and collaborations isn’t just attendance, it’s representation at the podium.
“Most of the events right now are 10% or less women. Some of them are only one or two percent,” Collins noted. “We’re working with the conferences to get more women on panels.”
One personal milestone stands out. “One of my personal goals has been to get some all-women panels because you don’t see a lot of that, and we did that recently at a conference, and I was really surprised that it was the first time it had ever happened.”
From crypto bros to blockchain grannies
Perhaps the most development has been the groups showing interest in the crypto revolution. It’s not just the young fintech executive or the twenty-something tech disruptors, it’s the ‘grannies’ and the pensioners looking to make the best of their life savings.
“I see a lot of older women,” she said, describing the subscribers to SheCrypto’s newsletter and platform. “I was actually surprised because I expected it to be younger.”
What she found instead was that women across every age bracket were coming in motivated by exactly the kind of financial precarity that makes blockchain’s promises so compelling.
“Women are thinking about their futures and how they can secure this money as we have all these fluctuations in the stock market.”
The demographic includes women converting 401(k) accounts into Bitcoin exposure, exploring crypto-linked life insurance products, ETFs, and attending workshops to understand how best to invest in digital assets.
This group is referred to as ‘Blockchain Grannies.’
“There’s a 50-plus women in tech group in New York City and they are into blockchain,” she said. “I’m seeing more and more of it, proving that blockchain, crypto is for everyone.”