41-year-old Lamar Wilson is the Co-Founder of Black Bitcoin Billionaire, a club that encourages members to invest in cryptocurrency through educational dialogue. Founded by Wilson and Isaiah âZay'' Jackson, the group is now one of the largest cryptocurrency groups on Clubhouse. And the group is receiving a lot of attention and financial backing from industry leaders like Jack Dorsey.Wilson says they started this club because of the lack of diversity in the crypto community. Black Bitcoin Billionaire offers a safe space for people to ask questions about crypto, especially folks whoâve been marginalized by the traditional financial system.âOn Clubhouse we host many rooms. Rooms like Wake Up With Bitcoin, we have Crypto Virgin Hour...we have a Bitcoin office hour, we have Bitcoin for the Babies, Bitcoin for Baby Boomers. So we hit both ends of the spectrum.â Wilson believes that cryptocurrency can be a path to generating generational wealth in Black families.âFrom an ownership perspective, there haven't been many things in this country that you can actually own and be able to have complete control over except for Bitcoin,â said Wilson, âAnd more than just the generational wealth, itâs about freedomâfreedom to be able to control your own money and no one can get in the middle of you making a transaction.âWilson isnât the only one betting on crypto. 29-year-old Anil Lulla had a cushy bank job in New York City, before he decided to quit and start a crypto company with his best friends.âWhen we started, we bootstrapped the whole company, never had any investors, spent a lot of our savings, and weren't taking salary for ourselves,â Lulla explained. âI think there was a lot of risk back then, and I still think there is now, so you really have to know what youâre doing. But if you put in the time and effort, you can quickly become a rising star in space, and that's exactly what our team did.â
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Today, Lullaâs company, Delphi Digital, does research and consulting in the crypto space. Their clients range from big-name banks, to EDM artists, to your average investor. âRunning a crypto company during the pandemicâit's very unfortunate to say because of everything that's obviously going onâbut itâs actually been the best thing for our business because so many more people have come into and started learning about crypto because everyone was stuck inside,â says Lulla.COVID-19 crushed traditional, legacy industries like hospitality and tourism while crypto markets boomed. At the beginning of 2020, Bitcoin was considered a fringe investment and the butt of jokes on CNBC, but by the end of the year, its value had nearly quadrupled.People like Lulla are investing in digital currencies because they believe in the long-term value of the assets, not because Elon Musk is tweeting about them. Since investing in crypto is risky, especially for minority investors who, historically, have less disposable income, research and education is critical if you want to succeed in this space.âThere's no reason for you to be risking your rent money, your car, note money and the things you need to live. There's no reason to do that because it's not a get rich quick type of investment,â explains Wilson.