On Nov. 4, Finurah will present its inaugural one-day virtual wealth summit. We will bring together thought leaders, proven experts, and the community for lively discussions on creating generational wealth, financing and more. Get access to the Finurah Wealth Summit 2021 here and click “Going”.
Wall Street never really rolled out the welcome mat for Black investors, so many are turning to crypto. Black Americans are now leading the cryptocurrency revolution in 2021.
“Black Americans are more actually more likely to hold cryptocurrencies than white Americans. Among investors, 30 percent of Black Americans, people who already hold some kind of investment, have cryptocurrencies, and that compares to about 17 percent of white investors,” says Bloomberg News reporter Akayla Gardner.
Some 23 percent of African-Americans own cryptocurrency, compared to 11 percent of white Americans, found a recent Harris poll. And, according to a 2021 University of Chicago survey of 1,004 young adults 18-29, 34 percent of traders were people of color who bought crypto over the past 12 months.
Blacks are finding more financial freedom with digital currency, and even the unbanked can participate in the cryptoverse. Almost 14 percent of Black households were unbanked in 2019.
Black households Had A Long Mistrust of Banks
“In the Black and brown community, so many have times, people have been misled and misinformed,” notes Penn State law professor Tonya M. Evans. “I can think in my grandmother’s generation, people going to sleep one and the savings and loan on the corner is no longer open and people losing so much.”
Black people have also had to deal with decades of discriminatory practices by banks. With crypto, Black people are “reimagining” trust of the finance world, she said.
According to the author of “Bitcoin & Black America,” Isaiah Jackson, by continuing to deposit money into banks, Black people continue to feed a system that has not done much for the Black community. “All those deposits would enrich banks, which encouraged redlining, denied loans to qualified applicants, and even beyond race, bankrupt the entire financial system in 2008,” says Jackson.
Crypto Could Level the Playing Field
“The circulation of the Black dollar is almost non-existent compared to other communities. The Asian dollar is estimated to circulate 120 times more than the Black dollar, which stays in our community an average of six hours,” Jackson told Medium.
“If we shifted our entrepreneurial mindset to accepting bitcoin, we would essentially make outside communities adjust to our preferred payment method, we should let bitcoin and cryptocurrency be our economic language and force other businesses to get down or lay down.”
Crypto Investing is Opening up a World of Finance That was not Readily Available to Blacks
“Black and brown communities have been traditionally been locked out of tech and finance, and we see the intersection of the two in the crypto aspect and the blockchains space,” says Evans. “And so people are starting to lean into see the possibilities when one invests in crypto assets, and certainly in the DeFi space.”
But while Blacks are becoming more engaged in the crypto world, much more needs to be done to get higher numbers of Blacks interested.
“Most certainly, the younger population in gravitating to [crypto] the most,” says crypto venture fund specialist Erikan Obotetukudo, founder and general partner of Audacity, a crypto venture fund. But, she adds, “The crypt audience that is really driving the crypto market today is young white male, probably under 40 that have significantly high disposable incomes…the younger Black population simply don’t have the same volume.”
If you want to hear more of the discussion about crypto, register for the virtual Finurah Wealth Summit, Nov. 4 on Facebook Live.
The panel discussion “How Can Cryptocurrency Build Black Wealth?” will feature Bloomberg News reporter Akayla Gardner, Penn State law professor Tonya M. Evans, and crypto venture fund specialist Erikan Obotetukudo, founder and general partner of Audacity.
They will discuss the crypto landscape, what it means for greater participation, and the potential for wealth generation. Hosted by Bloomberg, the discussion will take place via video with Bloomberg anchor Romaine Bostick moderating. It will be shown during the Finurah Wealth Summit. See the summit’s full lineup here.
