Quote:
Originally Posted by bootsnixon
I will attempt to answer this Pete as this is the advantage of crypto's that gets me most excited.
" The unbanked population internationally
As of 2017, approximately 1.7 billion people remain unbanked in emerging economies. This number has decreased from 2.5 billion people in 2014. "
This was taken from Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbanked
Imagine the undocumented worker in California that has no id to get a bank account and is forced to spend $20 to send $80 home to Guatemala with Western Union.
Imagine the Philipino nanny living in Canada that distrusts banks because of corruption back home and also spends $20 to send $80 home to the Philipines.
Imagine the renter in Honduras that needs to pay their utility bill, lost their bank account so has to spend a few hours going in person to the electric company office to pay in cash.
Imagine their neighbor, who never had a bank account so could not qualify for an electric utility account so has to use candles.
Imagine the family in Kenya that wants to start a safari tourism business but has no bank account and can't apply for a loan to buy a tour bus.
Imagine the shoe maker in Nigeria who has no bank account. He has access to local leather, stitching and soles but no cheap laces. He could buy them cheaply in bulk from China but has no way of sending funds so instead has to buy expensive individual lace packs at his local store.
Imagine the lady in Tibet who makes the most wonderful and warm mittens but has no bank account. She could sell them on Ebay and Etsy for a fortune but can not get an account so is limited to selling them in her small village.
We are not there yet with cryptocurrencies, but it has the potential to bring banking to many people in this world and in turn, raise their standard of living. |
1. No it does not have that potential. Crypto doesn't scale that way, and the technology is fundamentally too slow and expensive to use for people like you describe.
It's also not a currency, you can't use it for banking, it's just too volatile for that. The number of people actually buying anything in crypto is miniscule and on the decline.
2. No one who has money in crypto has any incentive to make cryptos a viable currency, especially for the poor.
If you're an investor you want volatility, you want the value to go up rapidly, which is antithetical to it being usable as a currency. If you're in crypto management business, you want it to be as expensive as possible to own and handle.
There's no one even seriously working towards creating banking for the unbanked through crypto. It's not a real thing.