Any event catastrophic enough to wipe out money in FDIC-insured bank accounts would also affect your paper currency. If you're really worried about that eventuality, best to hoard gold.
EDIT: Let me clarify, I suppose it is a viable option if you are living paycheck to paycheck, but if you have accumulated wealth of any significance, it is not.
Using bank means paying
- income tax and insurance
- debt collectors
- fines
Any mistake can result in astronomical fines and wipe all savings.
If I earn less than minimum wage, I have to pay 100% tax or more. That's because there is minimum monthly social benefits contribution.
With cash and bitcoin they never know if I have money.
Maybe foreign bonds and offshore accounts are good solution for storing money.
No, you have to pay income tax regardless of how you receive money. Bitcoin just makes it easier for you to avoid the law and be a leech on society by not paying taxes.
If they can't get the money because they don't have he private key they can simply put you in prison.
That may just be an American thing though, countries with first world banking systems may have that sorted :)
I get a bill. At the bottom of the bill is a red pay-in slip with a magic number on it. I log in to my bank, enter the number, tell it how much I want to transfer, done.
There's a not-used-enough automatic system where one of my creditors can send their bills directly to my bank. Now, I log into my bank, get told there's a pending e-bill, at which point I select it, press 'pay', done.
No fees anywhere.
I'm from the UK, which is just starting to do this, but it's nothing like as polished; small traders and tradesmen still prefer cheques, and regular payments are typically done via direct debit, where you authorise them to debit money directly out of your bank account (with a whole pile of banking guarantees). Switzerland seems to do this much less frequently; most people just pay the invoices monthly.
---EDIT---
Wire-transfers between national banks are free if you wait a day; there's a small fixed fee if you want them immediately. Transfers between different clients in the same bank are free and immediate. And it's becoming very common to be able to pay a quite assorted list of services through your e-bank account (from utilities to departmental store accounts) without fees.
Update: I'm even thinking of landlords of multitenant buildings, there's just no way they're going to take e.g. $100,000 in cash from everyone each month. It's really not workable. The apartment I had in NYC a few years ago was conventional check only. No cash possible, no credit card, no EFT.
I don't know how it works on other countries, but I'd expect similar systems.
