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Empowering Through Crisis: 2020

Keynotes and panels focused on decentralized finance, cryptocurrency adoption, and resilience, maintaining strong engagement despite the virtual format.
Location
Howard University D.C.
Date
Sep, 2020
Organizers
BillMari, BitHub Africa

Black Blockchain Summit 2020 (3rd Annual)

In 2020 the summit transitioned to an online format due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring the continuity of its mission in a virtual setting. The third annual summit featured live-streamed keynotes and panel discussions centered on blockchain solutions for Black communities amid crisis. Speakers and participants from around the world convened remotely to share insights on decentralized finance, cryptocurrency adoption, and community resilience. Despite the challenges of going virtual, the summit maintained robust engagement, continuing to highlight how blockchain technology can empower marginalized communities and address systemic disparities in real time.

Relevant Event
Wired
It’s the sixth annual Black Blockchain Summit, and organizers are quietly removing a couple rows of chairs from the room. The Howard University auditorium we’re in looks a third empty. There are at most 100 people in the crowd today—a far cry from the 1,500 who attended the summit over three days last year, when Sam Bankman-Fried was still hailed as crypto’s boy wonder. Now, in late September, he’s weeks away from being convicted for an $8 billion fraud scheme.
The Washington Post
It is a space for discussing the relationship between money and man, the powers that be and what they have done with power. Online and in person, on the campus of Howard University in Washington, D.C., an estimated 1,500 mostly Black people have gathered to talk about crypto—decentralized digital money backed not by governments but by blockchain technology, a secure means of recording transactions—as a way to make money while disrupting centuries-long patterns of oppression.
Time
Inside the World of Black Bitcoin. Cryptocurrency started out as mostly a hobby for tech-savvy, financial wizards who had money to play with — cultivating an image of its users as young, White “Bitcoin bros.” But today, a growing number of Americans of color are participating in the $2 trillion global industry as a way to build wealth outside the traditional banking system, which many say has historically excluded and discriminated against their communities.
Wired
It’s the sixth annual Black Blockchain Summit, and organizers are quietly removing a couple rows of chairs from the room. The Howard University auditorium we’re in looks a third empty. There are at most 100 people in the crowd today—a far cry from the 1,500 who attended the summit over three days last year, when Sam Bankman-Fried was still hailed as crypto’s boy wonder. Now, in late September, he’s weeks away from being convicted for an $8 billion fraud scheme.
The Washington Post
It is a space for discussing the relationship between money and man, the powers that be and what they have done with power. Online and in person, on the campus of Howard University in Washington, D.C., an estimated 1,500 mostly Black people have gathered to talk about crypto—decentralized digital money backed not by governments but by blockchain technology, a secure means of recording transactions—as a way to make money while disrupting centuries-long patterns of oppression.
Time
Inside the World of Black Bitcoin. Cryptocurrency started out as mostly a hobby for tech-savvy, financial wizards who had money to play with — cultivating an image of its users as young, White “Bitcoin bros.” But today, a growing number of Americans of color are participating in the $2 trillion global industry as a way to build wealth outside the traditional banking system, which many say has historically excluded and discriminated against their communities.
Wired
It’s the sixth annual Black Blockchain Summit, and organizers are quietly removing a couple rows of chairs from the room. The Howard University auditorium we’re in looks a third empty. There are at most 100 people in the crowd today—a far cry from the 1,500 who attended the summit over three days last year, when Sam Bankman-Fried was still hailed as crypto’s boy wonder. Now, in late September, he’s weeks away from being convicted for an $8 billion fraud scheme.
The Washington Post
It is a space for discussing the relationship between money and man, the powers that be and what they have done with power. Online and in person, on the campus of Howard University in Washington, D.C., an estimated 1,500 mostly Black people have gathered to talk about crypto—decentralized digital money backed not by governments but by blockchain technology, a secure means of recording transactions—as a way to make money while disrupting centuries-long patterns of oppression.
Time
Inside the World of Black Bitcoin. Cryptocurrency started out as mostly a hobby for tech-savvy, financial wizards who had money to play with — cultivating an image of its users as young, White “Bitcoin bros.” But today, a growing number of Americans of color are participating in the $2 trillion global industry as a way to build wealth outside the traditional banking system, which many say has historically excluded and discriminated against their communities.