Bringing together policymakers and Black leaders from the crypto industry, panelists at last week’s second annual Blockchain Braintrust retreat in Vineyard Haven addressed skepticism toward crypto and discussed ways it could potentially be used to bridge financial gaps.
Tiffany Smith, an attorney at WilmerHale who advises cryptocurrency companies, and Cleve Mesidor, executive director of the Blockchain Foundation, hosted the event. Since last year’s inaugural event, the two have developed the Blockchain Leadership Institute as a way to bring together people from diverse backgrounds to discuss and educate about cryptocurrency.
“The goal here was to make sure we were connecting with the Democratic policymakers who come to the island every August,” Mesidor said of this year’s event. “They have fundraisers, they have events, they have holidays. So it’s a way to demystify crypto and normalize it.”
With Smith’s legal background and Mesidor’s political experience, having previously worked in the trade sector of the Obama administration, the two have worked to inspire change and open up access to underrepresented communities within the crypto industry.
Smith said the phrase used to describe what crypto can do for communities is “financial inclusion.”
“It’s about using a financial tool to improve someone’s life, to make it better,” she said.
Hosting the event at the Vineyard, in part as a way to educate and alert policymakers about the benefits of crypto for certain communities that lack financial inclusion, was a concept that was conceived a few years ago.
“The idea was, I’m going to be on the island in August and there’s going to be Black politicians and a lot of business leaders, so it would be great to have a crypto-focused event on the island,” Smith said. “You’re giving policymakers and executives and leaders from other industries an opportunity to learn about this technology and understand why people are interested in it.”
According to Mesidor, we are at an “inflection point” in the cryptocurrency era, where education and discussion are important as this presidential election year looms.
“Whether it’s Trump or Kamala Harris, we’re going to see a difference in how Biden approaches it,” Mesidor said of the future of crypto.
Speakers at last week’s event included policymakers and CEOs of major companies. Among the speakers was California Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, who discussed the progress other countries have made on cryptocurrency compared to the United States.
“This is an industry that’s not going away,” Kamlager-Dove told the group at last week’s event about cryptocurrencies. “It’s probably going to leave us behind and find more success on other continents, forcing us to play catch-up, which America doesn’t like to do.”
She discussed ways workers can use crypto once they have access to it, in areas such as small business startups and housing development.
“It’s a kind of financial emancipation,” Kamlager-Dove said of the possibilities of crypto and what’s to come.
