If words like “Bitcoin” and the “metaverse” make you scratch your head in confusion, fear not—Gwyneth Paltrow is here to soften the burden of learning about the new virtual dimension. This holiday season, the actress, activist, and Goop founder is taking steps to make sure everyone is involved in the cryptocurrency conversation by teaming up with Cash App to give away $500,000 worth of Bitcoin. (’Tis the season!)
Fans of GP can enter by commenting on her Instagram and/or tweeting at her Twitter, and she’ll send over Bitcoin to the winners via the mobile payment service app. Whether you’re deep into the blockchain already or are ardently avoiding any form of crypto, let this be your call to realize that we’re living in the future of multiple currencies, and that it’s not as male-centric and impossible to learn as we think.
Below, ELLE.com exclusively caught up with Paltrow as she’s traveling for the holidays to learn about her recent venture into crypto, how fans can win Bitcoin, and the festive season.
How did you get into this crypto business, and what drew you to it?
I started to notice that people have been talking about crypto for a while. I first learned about it when I did a show for Apple TV back in the early days called Planet of the Apps, and I got placed with my new crypto expert. His name is Bill and he has an app called Abra, and he was my foray into understanding about the blockchain and how it worked. As the years ensued, I started to really notice that women were not talking about crypto and were largely left out of the conversation. And so, with a group of friends, I started a tutoring call—we do it about once a month—and for the past year or so we’ve been learning about blockchain, all the different platforms, and the different tokens and NFTs. I just got super interested in the space as a whole and Web3, and I just invested in a company called Terawulf that’s a sustainable Bitcoin mining company. [I’ve been] getting really interested in the space in a lot of ways and trying to bring everybody [in], but [mainly] women to the table as well, because when I started to talk about it with my women friends, they didn’t feel empowered to ask the questions or understand. We’re all learning at the same time, essentially.
I think when people think of crypto, it seems very macho.
Exactly.
Even though it doesn’t seem catered to women, that doesn’t mean that it can’t be.
Right! And as we know, women make so many of the financial decisions for the household, so they should be empowered to know about it and feel like they have the right to be in the space, too.
It’s not a gendered form of currency in any way, even though it may feel like it sometimes. For example, Elon Musk is essentially the face of crypto, and Joe Rogan speaks about it frequently. With Terawulf, are you hoping to focus on more sustainable crypto? Is that another aspect of the conversation that you’re hoping to gain traction with?
Yes, absolutely. I think we’ve all heard through Elon, for example, how energy- intensive mining Bitcoin is. With all these emerging technologies, we don’t have to create solves as these different platforms are developed. It’s true that mining Bitcoin is energy-intensive and Terawulf is doing it in a different way. There are going to be a lot of companies that we need to focus on, not only entering Web3 in a robust way, but also, what is the sustainable or responsible way to keep that?
What will your Cash App giveaway look like, and how can people enter?
[Cash App] is a great way to send Bitcoin to family and friends, and so the reason why I was like, “sure, I’d love to do this project” is specifically because I’m hoping that my followers on Instagram enter. I’ll post, and then my followers will post in the comments, and then winners will be chosen at random, given $20 increments and $100 increments.
I wanted to do it to get women—my followers specifically, and Marvel fans—feeling excited, like, “Wait, what is this?” then, “Okay, this is easy to download, it’s an easy interface, and I can get some free Bitcoin and therefore I can start, I can hold onto it, I can play around with it, I can trade it.” I’m really working to bring more women, not only into the conversation, but onto cap tables of these Web3 companies. I think it’s such a good way to create that cultural conversation around “what do I do with Bitcoin?” and I’m hoping that it will start deeper conversation. I want people to understand how accessible it is and how easy it is for them to start to play with if they want to. It’s not something that you have to be a 23-year-old techie guy to play with.
I know you did a podcast episode about crypto. Do either you or Goop have anything else coming up to get more women excited about it?
I’m working on a project specifically around this, around opening up women being able to invest in these kinds of companies. And as far as Goop goes, I don’t know if you’ve heard of what DAOs are—decentralized autonomous organizations—where groups of like-minded people come together and buy a token. It’s the perfect format for a VIP group. I don’t know if my audience is ready to adopt DAOs quite yet, but I do think about that.
When you think about the future brands, it’s all moving so quickly. For example, I had a friend who just wrote me saying, “Hey, should we think about doing this kind of retail experience in the metaverse?” She’s a founder as well and I was like, “Wow. I mean, yes, we should definitely think about this and think about what that would look like.” I don’t know if I’m ready to open a metaverse shop just yet, but I think it’s really important that all brands are thinking through this lens.
It’s becoming more and more impossible to ignore the metaverse. There are a lot of factors that go into this new reality, even though it seems daunting and dystopian. The future is now, and we’re waiting for our Ex Machina moment—
[Laughs.] Yes! That’s brilliant.
It’s happening, whether we want to admit it or not. Shifting gears—what are you most looking forward to during the holidays?
I’m very, very excited to be with family. Travel will be very limited, but we’re just planning on a nice, cozy Christmas at home, and lots of cooking. I’m really looking forward to when I can unplug from work. I can sleep for, like, nine or 10 hours a night, so I’m looking forward to some of that. [Laughs.]
Few things are better than uninterrupted sleep. What would you say to someone who doesn’t know anything about crypto but sees your Instagram posts and is curious?
I would just say that, as weird as it seems, this is the future. I cannot envision a future without cryptocurrency. It doesn’t mean that you have to invest in anything personally. It’s nice if you get some; if you win, you get a little bit of free Bitcoin to play with, but we should all be literate. A lot of people think of it as a hedge against the U.S. dollar because there’s inflation proofing built into the code, and you start to see countries like El Salvador adopting it—it’s here to stay. I think everybody should make an effort to become a little bit more literate in it.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
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