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Crypto promises Black Americans a different kind of relationship to wealth. But it also depends on a dangerous historical formula.
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At first, I was equal parts irritated and confused. My Instagram posts swarmed with cryptocurrency traders marketing themselves. They made claims of astronomical bitcoin profits. I’m the first to admit that as much as I like to play on social media, I am very much an analog Generation Xer. So I decided to do a bit of digging into the decentralized digital currency that is bitcoin. I didn’t get it.
Now I’m starting to understand. These traders claim that they are particularly skilled at making decisions on a daily basis about the market value of digital assets, and they promise high profits. I also noticed that there seems to be a Black-targeted crypto arena on Instagram and that Black people are investing in cryptocurrency at a higher rate than others. In addition to the barrage of messages underneath my posts, there are people I know in the flesh who have implored me through Instagram messaging to sign up with their traders. I believe they are well intentioned, but I haven’t ever heard them talk about how high-risk and speculative crypto is, or how volatile, which means it is easier to become ruined than rich through it.
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