SYSTEMIC RACISM
Rage Against the Investing Machine
The cryptocurrency industry markets itself as a panacea for the systemic racism in traditional investing. Is it though?
After leaving Wall Street in 2012, I consulted for a few years as a subject-matter expert for a capital markets research firm in New York. My main area of focus was fintech, a portmanteau for “finance” and “technology.” My job was to examine the impact of disruptive financial services startups and write research detailing my conclusions for use by traditional bulge-bracket investment banks. Since I was remote, I could do it all in shorts and flip-flops.
An aftereffect of the massive finance layoffs after the housing crisis was that scores of brilliant people decided to become entrepreneurs rather than work for traditional Wall Street banks again. The combination of this mass exodus of brainpower from global investment banks — and the rise of smartphones — spawned a reimagining of conventional financial services.
In the years since the crisis, a host of fintech startups challenged how we think of finance. Companies like Chime, an online pseudo-bank, and Betterment, a provider of robo-advisory services, are a couple of examples. For regular folks, this meant financial democratization…
