The Washington Post, May 23, 2022, Opinion: Think you’re the one to beat the crypto crash? Think again.
When TerraUSD, a stablecoin — that is, a cryptocurrency that is supposed to be pegged to the dollar or another asset — lost almost all its value this month, it happened so fast that many investors lost whatever they had in the market. Another stablecoin, DEI, went as low as 52 cents, instead of the dollar promised. Bitcoin itself, which is not pegged to any currency, is down more than 50 percent from its high point last fall.
In many cases, it’s those who can least afford to take this sort of loss who are taking the hit. Crypto has been aggressively marketed as a chance to catch up to groups who felt left behind in the forever unequal United States. Over and over, partisans declared that blockchain would be a force for financial equity, empowering people traditionally shut out of American wealth-building mechanisms, such as housing or the stock market, by race or lack of capital.
