Investigating Generational Wealth
Current challenges & how crypto can help
This report explores the pathways and barriers to generational wealth-building in the United States. It features evidence-based documentation of the wealth gap in the U.S. and identifies opportunities for crypto to provide new avenues for growing wealth.
“At the end of the day, everything that we do winds up back in the hands of those individuals that have systematically set this up for us not to win.”
Najah Roberts speaking on the systemic barriers that prevent many people in the U.S. from building wealth and her motivation to provide on-ramps to a new financial ecosystem.
Report Goals
Better understand the extent to which crypto can be a solution for existing shortcomings in the financial system and illustrate the real problems that crypto builders should be seeking to address.
Provide Web3 founders and builders, crypto purchasers, and policymakers a foundation for meaningful and evidence-based solutions that enable more equitable opportunities for wealth-building.
Call-to-action to craft more thoughtful policy at this pivotal moment for the new crypto financial ecosystem.
What’s in it:
An assessment of the current state of the wealth gap in the U.S. and what is truly “middle class” today based on primary sources, including the Federal Reserve, Brookings Institution, RAND, the Journal of Financial Economics, and the San Francisco Office of Financial Empowerment
Identities barriers to building wealth-building in the U.S., including challenges in achieving day-to-day stability.
Analysis coupled with interviews with experts, including Newton Sanon of OIC of South Florida (OIC-SFL) a community-based workforce development organization; Najah Roberts of Crypto Blockchain Plug, the first brick-and-mortar community Bitcoin store and literacy center; and Liz Gamboa and Henry “Jake” Foreman of New Mexico Community Capital, an organization providing technical assistance and services for tribes and tribal enterprises.
We cite Mehrsa Baradaran, author of The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap and Ex-Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley.
Key Takeaways
Builders of crypto financial instruments need to understand that people need tools that address their day-to-day concerns before taking the next steps toward building wealth.
The dialogue on crypto in policy-making circles must shift from criticism of “irrational” investment choices to acknowledging the needs of vulnerable and historically underserved people to find better options.
Novel approaches to financial tools and services are not enough to democratize access to wealth building. Policymakers must create legislation that benefits everyone.
Diagram from the report illustrating the barriers along the “pathway” to building wealth.
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