Bitcoin Sees Best Month in 2024; Black investors are left behind

Following the election of Donald Trump, Bitcoin in addition to other cryptocurrencies have seen a surge, and Bitcoin in particular is anticipated to have its best month since February because it reaches post-election highs.

According to Coin Metrics forecasts, Bitcoin will see a growth of 38%. profit for the month November, which is just a forty five% increase recorded in February.

How BLACK ENTERPRISES as previously reported, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency investors were optimistic concerning the prospect of the following Trump administration being extremely friendly to cryptocurrencies after previously being hostile towards it.

However, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies depend on a practice called energy mining, which, as we reported in July, could make Black communities, already in danger from climate change, much more vulnerable.

According to Brittany Stredic, a member of the Houston coalition fighting the pipeline and gas plant in her neighborhood, the plant is causing unnecessary disruption.

“They (the state of Texas) are attempting to use these ‘unstable’ climate events, frost and warmth, as justification for all latest gas plants. But we do not need it,” she told the outlet.

Algernon Austin, director of racial and economic justice on the Center for Economic and Policy Research, highlighted how the cryptocurrency industry uses its wealth to lobby for favorable policies, often on the expense of the country’s most vulnerable populations.

“Cryptocurrencies have a lot of downsides, but unfortunately the industry has a lot of money and has been using it lately to get favorable policies in Washington and places like Texas,” Austin said. Austin continued: “Cryptocurrencies are the shiny new way to lose money. The analyzes carried out suggest that, in any case, this has contributed to increasing inequality. What is disturbing is that on top of all this there is an environmental problem.”

In 2023, the cryptocurrency was reported to have failed black communitiesdespite a part of his pitch to those communities that cryptocurrency could be a lifesaver for constructing wealth beyond more traditional means.

“The idea that cryptocurrencies somehow provide an easier path than other forms doesn’t work. It is not as democratizing and welcoming as it is being suggested,” Austin said. “The cryptocurrency industry is concerned about the cryptocurrency industry, it is not concerned about Black wealth.”

Mehrsa Baradaran, a law professor on the University of California, Irvine and an authority on financial inequality and the racial wealth gap, compared the cryptocurrency industry’s approach to Black Americans to other predatory financial programs which have historically targeted Black communities.

“You have the ideal conditions that led to Freedman’s Bank, that led to the subprime crisis, that led to post-New Deal contract sales, which means that capitalism is going through some change and something is wrong, and the government has to deal with it, but instead they leave out certain people and then it becomes some terrible, exploitative incentive where someone always steps in. It’s a robbery of people’s money,” Baradaran said.

Baradaran continued, arguing that a more sustainable solution is to repair what’s broken, slightly than hope that something with little or no oversight will change into a magic wealth-building pill.

“That’s what you see with bitcoin: scammers, traders and scammers, individuals who come in and say, ‘Listen, we will benefit from people’s real desire to construct wealth in a fucked up system.’ Baradaran said.

She concluded: “If the system is broken, let’s fix it, instead of saying, ‘Look, the system is broken, let’s create a different system. It’s a loss of all the lessons that we had to learn the hard way in this financial system, which is that you need trust, you need to have trust. And if we allow fraud to occur without regulation, there will always be fraud.”

Meanwhile, Austin highlighted the insidious nature of selling Black people what some say is a fake inventory of products.

“It is important to recognize that the Black population experiences greater economic hardship and economic insecurity than the White population or the U.S. population as a whole, on average. There is more poverty, higher debt rates, higher rates of insecurity, unstable work hours, expensive housing, and there are a lot of financial issues that come into play in the lives of many African Americans,” Austin said. “So if you’re worried about how you’re going to pay your bills and how you’re going to get by, someone comes along and says, ‘I’ve got a solution that’s going to help you pay all your bills and help you pay for your kids’ college education and the house you’ve always wanted,'” that is pretty tempting. .