Start here: how to use this tool
This tool answers one question: if Black Americans set aside a small, steady amount of their spending for Bitcoin, what could it grow into? You don't need to know anything about Bitcoin to use it. Give it two minutes, then play with the numbers.
Buying power
The money Black households have left after taxes to spend. It is estimated at close to $2 trillion a year. It measures spending ability, not savings sitting in a bank.
Dollar-cost averaging
Putting in the same amount on a regular schedule, no matter the price. When the price is low your money buys more Bitcoin, and when it's high it buys less. You never have to guess the best day to buy.
Price swings
Bitcoin's price goes up and down, sometimes by a lot. The tool shows the rough patches as well as the wins, so you can see what holding through them would have felt like.
Five steps
- Look at where the money goes.Pick a spending year under “Set your scenario.” The page shows the biggest spending categories and how spending rises and falls through the year.
- Choose your years.Pick the year to start buying Bitcoin and the year to stop. Try a few. Starting at a different time can change the result a lot.
- Say how many people take part.The people box is the size of the community in millions. The slider is the share of those people who actually join. Not everyone would, so try 5% to 10% for a realistic picture. At 100%, the community would own a huge slice of all Bitcoin.
- Set how often and how much.Choose daily, weekly, or monthly deposits. Then enter a dollar amount each person puts in, or switch to a percent of their spending. Small amounts add up when many people do it together.
- Read the results.Scroll down to see what was put in, what it's worth, and how it moved over time. Then check the comparison tables to see how the start year and the amount change the outcome.
What the result cards mean
Three things to try first
- Start in 2018, deposit $20 a month, and set the participation slider to 10%. Note the lowest point, then the final value.
- Switch from monthly to daily and compare the percent gain. It barely moves, because the buy days change but the price path stays the same.
- Open the start-year table in “Compare the options.” See how a different start year changes the multiple.
This tool shows what happened in the past. It does not predict the future and it is not financial advice. Block Wall Street built it for education.
Set your scenario
Everything below updates as you change these. Pick the years, how many people take part, and how much each one sets aside.
Edit the buying power numbers (billions of dollars per year)
Starting values are rounded estimates built around the Selig Center for Economic Growth figures (about $1.3 trillion in 2017 and about $1.98 trillion projected for 2025). Years in between are interpolated. Replace them with your own numbers any time.
Where the Black dollar goes
Monthly spending by category for the year you picked. The gold bar is what your Bitcoin allocation would be next to them.
Average month, biggest to smallest
Month by month
What the Bitcoin slice grows into
On every deposit day, the community buys Bitcoin at that day's closing price, no matter what the price is. That is dollar-cost averaging. Switch between daily, weekly, and monthly deposits above.
Compare the options
Same deposits, different starting years. Then the same window with different amounts.
Does the start year matter?
Does the amount matter?
It's already happening in Chicago
The Altgeld Bitcoin Reserve was founded in Altgeld Gardens, a public housing community on Chicago's South Side. It describes itself as the first community-operated Bitcoin treasury in the United States, held in a 2-of-3 multisig cold storage vault, with holdings anyone can check on-chain. The Illinois House of Representatives recognized it as the nation's first community-run Bitcoin reserve in October 2025.
It matters as a precedent. A reserve that started in public housing now appears on BitcoinTreasuries.net, the tracker that also lists companies like Strategy and Tesla. At last check it ranked #69 among private entities. The amount is small, but a neighborhood that banks overlooked is on the same public ledger as Wall Street firms.
Read this before you share these numbers
- This is education, not financial advice. It shows what would have happened in the past. Bitcoin can fall more than 70% from a peak, and it has. The “lowest point” number above shows how rough the ride was for the window you picked.
- Buying power is not savings or wealth. It is an estimate of after-tax income available to spend, and it is debated by economists. Most households would not set aside money the way this model assumes, which is why the participation slider exists.
- Category shares are modeled. The split follows the general pattern of the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey for Black households. Month-to-month swings (the holiday bump, back-to-school) are illustrative, not measured.
- Bitcoin prices are daily closing prices pulled live from CryptoCompare when your browser is online. Daily deposits buy at each day's close, weekly deposits buy on Mondays, and monthly deposits buy on the 1st. If the live feed can't load, the page falls back to rounded month-end prices connected day to day, so daily and weekly results are only rough estimates. It says so at the top.
- Price impact is ignored. The model buys at the historical monthly price as if the community's buying never moved the market. With a large group putting in even small amounts, the real market would likely have moved against them. Check the “share of all Bitcoin” number in the Bitcoin bought card. Lower the participation slider to see a more realistic scale.
- Fees, taxes, and the cost of buying are not included.