Vibranium was proud to lend its substantial resources to Invest Fest 2022 as one of the premier sponsors of the event spearheaded by a Black organization to support Black tech companies.
Tell us about the goal of Vibranium and your hopes for the future of the industry.
Vibranium was really founded out of the need to figure out how to attack economic injustice. It started from a place of realizing that you can’t expect the people that have caused the problem to solve the problem. I keep going back to when I graduated college in 1985. The statistics have always been horrible and they’ve gotten worse, but then something like Rodney King and then George Floyd happens, and these corporations say, “I’m going to give billions of dollars and we’re going to solve the problem,” but the problem never gets solved because the same systems don’t want to cause a problem.
The only way to correct the problem is to do something ourselves. We reached out and said, “we have to build the biggest coalition and the biggest network possible to do something different and create new economics.” We bridged the gap and created a network of Africans and African Americans to do commerce, share content, and issue loans and grants together. It is all powered by the Vibranium currency to build a real new economy and a self-contained economy, where you can exist, grow your wealth, grow your value, and never have to leave and depend on somebody else.
What advice do you have for someone who is struggling and doesn’t have the money to invest?
If somebody benefits from you saying “yes” to something, look at it a little closer and say, “well, this person benefits. They’re getting the commission, but is this the right thing for me?” Have somebody else look something over. We have an accountant, a tax attorney, and a lawyer, who can look at something for you. I told my family, “please send me your stuff. Let me look at it because I don’t want anybody getting duped.” We definitely have to protect people because when we are seeking something so desperately, in certain cases, we’re easily gullible.
Looking at what we’re doing with Blockchain technology and cryptocurrency, some of these crypto companies came to the Black community and they said, “look, you’re going to double, triple, and quadruple your money, and there’s no risk.” These are things that don’t exist and are not true. What happened was when Bitcoin was at $60,000, they would tell Black people to still buy it. Now it’s at $20-26,000. It looked good, it was presented well, and there were important-looking people that were presenting it. We have got to get past that and read the situation.
