A Truly Social Currency

Confidence and chartreuse reign at Gracias, a social payments company billed as “Bitcoin with friends.” That’s the point, says founder, serial entrepreneur Deana Burke, who created the app to help young women and teens get started with cryptocurrency.

Burke first began buying and selling Bitcoin in 2017, during the currency’s all-time high; she did some day-trading in her downtime after the marketing company she founded, Agency of Trillions, was acquired by Indiegogo. That December, when she gave a few modest shares to a few women on her team, “they were disproportionately excited,” she says.“I thought, wow, here is this group of young urban tech savvy young women who were interested in Bitcoin and wanted it but didn’t have any,” she says. “As soon as I made it social and gave them skin in the game, it completely changed the dynamic.”