The Real Story of Crypto and the Black Community

I’ve been at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) Annual Convention in Cleveland since August 6. I came expecting to hear about the state of our industry under Donald Trump’s second presidency, especially how to navigate the administration’s anti-DEI policies, which many in the Black community see as a direct attack on progress. I thought the talk would be about AI: how to use it, how to control it, and whether it was a threat to our profession.

I definitely did not expect to talk about crypto.

But there I was, walking through the Career Fair, when I saw him. A burly young man in a suit, observing the controlled chaos from a distance. He looked more like a recent graduate than a veteran, and when I approached him, it turned out I was right. His name is Jaden Baxter, he’s 24, and this was his first NABJ convention. Unlike me, he wasn’t a journalist; he’s the Special assistant to the mayor of Cleveland, a changemaker in his community.

When I told him I cover AI and Crypto for Gizmodo, his face lit up.

“Crypto, huh?” he asked, his interest immediate and genuine. Usually, it’s the AI part that grabs people’s attention.

Baxter’s knowledge of crypto was built on the same clichés I hear all the time: that it’s a tool for criminals, a mirage, something that will disappear as quickly as it came. He had so many questions. Is it real? Is it true? Is it for people like us? Listening to him, I realized we in the media have failed. We haven’t done our job of serving a community that is hungry for answers but is being left out of the conversation.

I started by explaining that the crypto industry is basically a decentralized, tech-driven version of the financial system. Imagine all the services your bank offers, but built on a technology called blockchain and without any middlemen.

In simple terms, a blockchain is like a public digital receipt book. Every transaction is a new entry that is visible to everyone, and once it’s written down, it can’t be erased or altered. This creates a transparent and secure system that isn’t controlled by any single company or government.

“Is that true?” he exclaimed, his eyes wide. It was the first time he’d ever heard it explained that way.

Loans, payments, transfers: it’s all possible. I told him that cryptocurrencies, by their nature, don’t discriminate. Transactions are handled by smart contracts, which are just lines of code designed to execute automatically when certain conditions are met. Think of it like a highly advanced vending machine: you put in your money, and the code guarantees you get your product without a human needing to approve the sale. The code doesn’t care about your skin color, your credit history, or where you live.

This is a massive departure from traditional banking. He couldn’t believe it. I explained that for communities that face enormous barriers to financial services, crypto offers a potential alternative. The 2023 FDIC survey found that 5.6 million U.S. households have no bank account, with Black, Hispanic, and lower-income households being the most affected.

Of course, the risks are huge. The government doesn’t insure your funds like it does at a bank. You’re on your own. If you lose your money, no one is coming to save you. He told me this was another aspect no one in his circle ever talks about.

“People don’t know that,” he said. “We don’t use it, we aren’t in crypto, bro.”

I mentioned that crypto adoption is highest in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, places where millions are denied access to banks and where people in the diaspora need a cheap way to send money back home.

“Wow!!! Really?” he exclaimed. “I didn’t know, bro.”

I told him that crypto should, in theory, be embraced by underprivileged communities because of its transparent and non-discriminatory nature. But he, like so many others, associated it with crime. While it’s true that criminals use crypto, the data tells a more nuanced story. According to the analytics firm Chainalysis, illicit transactions made up a tiny fraction of total crypto volume in recent years. I explained that the President of the United States, his family, and many of the world’s wealthiest people and corporations, like Tesla, hold Bitcoin in their portfolios.

He was stunned.

He asked about Bitcoin, which for him, was synonymous with the entire industry. When I told him the price was now around $120,000, he was fascinated.

“Wow!!! The people who bought it at that time must be multi-millionaires,” he said, a sense of wonder in his voice. He said if he had been better informed as a young adult, he would have bought some. I explained that the most important question to ask before buying any cryptocurrency, whether it’s Bitcoin, Ether, or Solana, is: What is the project behind it? What problem does it solve?

“But do you think it’ll last?” he asked.

I told him the U-turn in the United States under the second Trump administration changed everything. After years of regulatory hostility, the administration has embraced crypto, legitimizing the industry within the world’s most powerful financial system. There will be bumps ahead, but there’s no going back.

Then I asked him if he’d heard of stablecoins, cryptocurrencies pegged to a stable asset like the U.S. dollar. He hadn’t. I explained how they could revolutionize money transfers, making them nearly instant and incredibly cheap.

“Wow, bro,” he said again. “Is this for real? People like us are always late to the party.”

I tried to tell him it wasn’t too late, but he was stuck on a thought. He explained that there’s a cliché that Black people in crypto must be engaged in criminal activity. He started to wonder aloud if reducing the entire industry to its worst actors wasn’t a deliberate way to exclude people like him from an opportunity to build wealth.

“We are always the last people,” Baxter said, a look of disgust on his face. “We miss all the trains to get rich.”

He was disgusted that his community had missed the boat on an industry that could, in principle, solve some of the very problems of discrimination they face every day. And I was left wondering how many other Jadens are out there: curious, ambitious, and waiting for a conversation that no one seems willing to have with them.