Who are the 'underbanked' ? What are their needs? What are the current solutions?
There is nothing "there" in crypto. It's a scam. Go and obtain every textbook you can on amazon about blockchains, bitcoin, crypto systems etc. and investigate their authors.
I've just done that: they're all part of various crypto schemes. They all make these insane claims in passing. NONE provide any evidence, any argument, anything at all.
None provide an analysis of the current systems in question, the various alternatives, and so on -- none show that blockchain is even minimally relevant to solving ANY problem.
This is a profoundly manipulated market: all the numbers are fake, all the ideas are fake, all the people are fake.
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/us-government-enlists-usdc-f...
> US Government Enlists USDC for ‘Global Foreign Policy Objective’ in Venezuela: Circle CEO
Even the US government is willing to admit there are situations where crypto is the best option available.
The price of Bitcoin in 2013 was $200. Today it's $29,000. Wouldn't you say that, at a minimum, it's doing a good job of storing value in an inflationary environment? At best it is creating some spectacular wealth which is real.
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/07/15/crypto-energy-texas-... https://www.govtech.com/computing/bitcoin-mining-threatens-t... https://www.utilitydive.com/news/warren-bitcoin-texas-power-... https://fortune.com/2022/07/12/texas-bitcoin-miners-paid-shu...
Having a buyer of last resort is good for energy grids (or any product), not bad for them. It incentivizes grid build out. Instead of worrying about whether a particular energy development will have enough demand, they can work out a deal with Bitcoin miners to sell wasted energy to them.
Industrial users of power frequently work out power agreements that will pay them in the event that they are required to shut down. This is completely normal. The difference is that Bitcoin miners are EVEN MORE flexible in that they can shut down at a moment's notice, unlike manufacturing or smelting. Again, this is good for grids, not bad.
They incentivize the build out of green energy projects such as wind and solar. Projects that in many cases would never have happened without subsidies from Bitcoin miners.
When you say we have to pay them to shut down what you are really saying is that we have to pay them back for energy they already purchased.
The fact that this excess energy is available on demand to utilities ensures we have a more stable energy grid by serving as an energy storage system that we only pay for in times of severe demand.
The under-banked don't have bank accounts because they don't have money. Nobody with money has trouble accessing a bank account. There's tons of online-only bank accounts you can open, often with no fees and zero or limited minimum balance requirements. Ally or Schwab in the US. Internationally, there's Wise, and all sorts of regional options like M-Pesa in a number of African countries. Historically we've had postal banking.
The problem is a social one, for congress to solve.
It's akin to saying people are hungry because they don't have grocery bags. The issue isn't the lack of bag, it's lack of food to put into it.
I spent 4 years in Vietnam before getting locked out due to covid. The last two were on a motorcycle traveling all over the country.
Women in the north have money. They store that wealth in gold. In order to keep it secure, they keep it in their teeth. [0]
These same women also have smart phones and really good and inexpensive 4g (probably 5g now) networking, because the government provides the telcom as a function of the military. Coverage is almost 100%, even in the most remote areas.
Those are the underbanked. They need security and they need a way to capitalize on their holdings (think collateralized Kiva loans). Crypto, today, provides that. I know it is true, because I'm doing it myself.
It is 2023, let's bring people out of the dark ages.
[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=vietnam+woman+gold+teeth
Technology-wise, most countries have faster methods of sending money than how US system works: FedNow is a very late welcome addition that analogous systems already exist in other countries for years, even in places where you don't expect (Nigeria, Myanmar and India of all places do have near real-time transactions). It's genuinely embarrassing that when FedNow was initially announced, most financial analysts and bankers have simply exclaimed "finally!" because that's how behind US is.
Society-wise, most people who are having monetary problems also have much more pressing life-or-death problems: there are danger where they are living (either due to conflicts or due to the general inhospitality of the place), they don't have access to clean water and food, they don't have decent work despite their best efforts, and they don't have a place to study and improve their skills. It doesn't help that their government tends to block improvements that will go to their citizens and just plunder their countries' resources. What problems does cryptocurrency solve here?
The GDP per capita of Burundi is $221. A couple years ago a single Bitcoin transaction cost $60. The thermodynamics of these kinds of systems make them dramatically more expensive than classical finance because you have to replicate the data so many times. The only reason a Bitcoin payment doesn't cost significantly more than that is nobody's using it, lol.
It's slow, it's inefficient, and worse yet, there's no authority to help try and stabilize the currency. The worst off are hurt the most by wild volatility swings, and crypto is volatility incarnate. The promise that volatility would decrease as a function of market cap simply did not materialize.
Enough with the silly privilege arguments, let's stick to facts.
I specifically called out M-PESA because it's a regional solution to an actual problem they have. [1] And not a blockchain in sight.
[1] https://www.vodafone.com/about-vodafone/what-we-do/consumer-...
Check cashing isn't just about cashing the check, it's a predatory short-term lending facility. Actually cashing a check is a solved problem.
And again, not addressed by crypto.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Savings_S...
They might have some money but they may not have a home address.
