By Sabrina Lynch

• 23% of African-Americans own cryptocurrency and 44% of them are investors of color
• Cryptocurrency Market Triples in less than a year from $770B to $2.7T
  

Black-owned businesses' finances were disproportionately impacted by COVID, but now the tides are turning as this demographic is utilizing the technologies behind blockchain to own the cryptocurrency market.Just under one in four, about 23% of Black people own this cache currency, compared to 11% of White Americans, and 17% of Hispanics. Last year, approximately 13% of Black households in the U.S. were unbanked which left them financially vulnerable. Cryptocurrencies offer a new decentralized financial model allowing Black communities to grow their own wealth, after being ostracized for so long from traditional banking institutions.

Why This Matters: The number of crypto investors is on track to double as a new generation of Black traders emerges, with 44% of cryptocurrency traders being investors of color. In addition, there has been a steady increase of non-traditional investors, those who have no academic credentials or professional training in finance, turning to crypto to escape barriers created by traditional banking methods.

By CultureBanx Team

• MoviePass founder Stacy Spikes acquirers the company’s assets for the less than $250K
• The U.S. movie theater sector is expected to hit $9.4B by the end of 2021
  

Two years after the collapse of MoviePass, the company's original co-founder Stacy Spikes has plans for a movie subscription revival. Spikes has been granted ownership of MoviePass assets by a New York City court  according to Insider. His bid for the company's assets was apparently less than $250,000, which is shocking considering the company had once taken in investments led by a former Netflix executive of $27 million, according to Reuters. With subscription movie-going here to stay, is now the right time for Spikes to resurrect MoviePass in a sector expected to hit $9.4 billion by the end of the year?  

Why This Matters: As theatergoing rebounds in a post-pandemic world, companies like Regal, AMC (AMC -0.77%), Alamo and other theaters that have since created similar services to MoviePass stand to greatly benefit. Spikes said in 2019 that a failed deal with AMC, which went away when Adam Aron became the theater chain's CEO, doomed MoviePass for good.

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By Ericka Kamanou-tenta

• Black Culture has made sneakers an invaluable asset; meanwhile, only 5% of sneaker retailers in America are Black
• The sneaker market pulled in $70B in 2020 an it’s expected to reach $102B by 2025
  

Black individuals consistently account for the share of America’s sneaker sales each year. However, Black retailers hardly profit from the industry’s increasing valuation that pulled in $70 billion in 2020, as a result of being boxed out of the sneaker market by traditional establishments.

Why This Matters: According to the market research company Statista, the sneaker industry is set to rake in a value of $102 billion by 2025. Black business owner of several sneaker and apparel stores, James Whitner, told NBC the sneaker industry “is a white boys’ club, like most things”. This reality clearly creates an unjust disproportion between Black dollars and any benefit that Black-owned stores could gain.

By Brooke Sinclair

• Ye’s high-end clothing companies Yeezy and Yeezy Apparel have just settled a $950K lawsuit for slow product shipping
• The Yeezy brand most likely suffered from the same supply chain delays as the rest of the world, but failed to communicate or accommodate its customers
  

Billboard estimates rapper and fashion mogul Kanye West is worth $4 billion, but his high-end clothing companies Yeezy and Yeezy Apparel are LLCs that have just settled a lawsuit for $950,000 for slow product shipping. Let this story be a lesson to entrepreneurs everywhere, being sued is the first warning from startup lawyers when advising founders on the difference between LLC versus C-Corp. West’s sneaker and apparel collabs with Adidas (ADDYY 0.47%) and Gap (GPS +6.52%) have been valued at $970 million by Bloomberg, but neither of those companies were named in the suit.

Why This Matters: Yeezy was sued for unlawful business conduct of a California company. The company violated state law by falsely advertising 30 day shipping then failing to deliver the items. Under the settlement, companies are banned from “untrue or misleading representations regarding a shipping timeframe or refund,” according to the Los Angeles DA’s office. To add insult to injury, YeezySupply.com offered speedier shipping for an extra cost on its website even though the nation was already experiencing delays in the supply chain.