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Communities can now create wealth and move towards financial freedom by investing in Bitcoin, the former audit manager at the Fed said.
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She noted that crypto allows people in Black and Latino communities to access wealth that is otherwise inaccessible via the traditional financial system.
Bitcoin has been singled out as a tool for creating generational wealth and imparting financial freedom to all, according to Charlene Fadirepo, a former manager at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.
Fadirepo is also the founder of the fintech platform Guidefi, whose main goal is to allow women and other professionals within the community access financial and investment advice.
In an interview with Yahoo Finance this week, Fadirepo said the flagship cryptocurrency was “absolutely a tool for social justice.”
The former auditor at the US central bank believes that Bitcoin has given Black Americans and Latino Americans, particularly, access to financial tools largely inaccessible via legacy banks.
Last week, a report by MarketWatch revealed that there's a growing gap along racial lines when it comes to access to credit in the US. According to the report, people of color (blacks) fail to secure a mortgage 84% more compared to white applicants.
“[Bitcoin] allows communities to build wealth in communities that have been left out of the discriminatory banking system,” she told Finance Yahoo.
She also believes Bitcoin is set for further growth as more institutional money flows into the crypto industry. According to her, 2022 and beyond will continue to see more investors look at Bitcoin as an asset class.
Once that explodes and more institutions and high-net-worth individuals add BTC to their balance sheets, Bitcoin’s “big picture” will brighten even more.
She also talked about Bitcoin’s price over the past two years, comparing it with that of gold. On a 10-year basis, the benchmark cryptocurrency posted annualised returns of 200%, with 2020-2021 seeing an uptick of about 400%.
In comparison, gold’s return over the pandemic period is around 15% while in stocks, the S&P returned roughly 42%.
Individuals can invest in Bitcoin by buying the cryptocurrency and holding it for future returns or trading it on brokerages and exchanges. Some also reap huge benefits through Bitcoin mining.
Fadirepo also weighed in on the issue of crypto regulation, noting that regulatory clarity will help build trust, enhance consumer protection, and ultimately, attract more retail and institutional investors.
Apart from Bitcoin, other sectors of the crypto ecosystem providing a route to financial freedom are decentralised finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). In 2021, the NFTs industry saw sales of over $44 billion, according to a Chainalysis report.