Cleve Mesidor was working in the Obama administration in 2013 when she first heard about bitcoin. From the start, the concept fascinated her. Within a few years, she would leave politics and enter the cryptocurrency space with a mission to make the new financial world better for people of color and women than the traditional stock, bond and mutual fund market. shift.

More recently, Mesidor released a book, The Clevolution: My Quest for Justice in Politics & Crypto, a memoir about his journey from growing up in Haiti to falling down the blockchain rabbit hole.

She is the founder of the National Policy Network of Women of Color in Blockchain and has just become executive director of the Blockchain Foundation, which seeks to educate different industries about the emerging technology.

CNBC recently interviewed Mesidor on what people are wrong about cryptocurrency, its future, and how to keep the new space from looking like the old world of finance. Shortly after that conversation, Bitcoin took a massive plunge on Monday, hitting $23,000 — its lowest level since December 2020.

The exchange has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Annie Nova: You had a career in politics before moving into cryptocurrency. How does this previous experience influence the work you do now?

Cleve Mesidor: When I left Washington, I returned to New York and was immersed in the New York crypto ecosystem. When bitcoin hit $20,000, everyone lost their minds and the IRS was like, ‘Are these people paying their taxes?’ The regulatory conversation really got heated and so I started leaning on my Washington background. I found that there was a void: the policy did not follow the adoption. Since 2018, I started publishing a weekly newsletter for my public policy network.

AN: What do people get the most wrong about cryptocurrency?

CM: We know that about 25% of the United States owns cryptocurrencies of some kind, and black and Latino communities are actually leading the adoption. They are not white men. The working class and the middle class are already part of it.

AN: Why are black and Latino communities driving crypto adoption?

CM: Your attraction to cryptocurrency depends on your relationship with money. If money in the traditional system has always worked for you, you’ll think, “Why fix it?” ‘Why in fact take the risk of a new path?’ But if traditional finance has never worked for you, then the alternatives seem attractive. In America, in the black and Latino communities, whether you are unbanked or a professional like me, you are treated the same. The banks don’t care about you, the wealth managers don’t care about you, and Wall Street doesn’t care about you.

AN: But how is cryptocurrency different? I see the same problems in traditional finance reappear here.

CM: What is different with cryptocurrency is the decentralization. With all other traditional asset classes, there are barriers to entry. It is the first asset class accessible to everyone. This is not the case for stocks, bonds or mutual funds. Additionally, black and Latino communities do not view crypto as a risky investment; the riskiest place for us has been traditional finance. A few months ago, Ryan Coogler, the director of Black Panther, walked into a bank to withdraw $10,000, and they called the police on him.

AN: There is still a huge gender imbalance in the cryptocurrency space, with far fewer women involved than men. What do you think is the main reason?

CM: Women are a rapidly growing demographic in crypto, but the numbers are still abysmal. This is largely because women are often heads of households and responsible for the livelihoods of their children and parents, which affects their tolerance for risk.

AN: How do you attract more women?

CM: We need to empower women and give them more information about crypto. By talking to people about things like “fractionalization,” which means you don’t have to buy a whole bitcoin, we’ll get more women. And the value proposition cannot be limited to becoming an investor. We also need to emphasize entrepreneurship opportunities, innovative career paths with remote work options, the ability to make a social impact and also highlight resources and education on how to reduce risks.

AN: What do you see as the future of cryptocurrency?

CM: If we reduce the noise of cryptocurrency and blockchain, and a lot of it is noise, it’s really about efficiency, optimizing processes and giving people more control – l access to their own data. Blockchain and cryptocurrency will power our world and we won’t even notice it.