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
You don't need it. That doesn't mean it doesn't work as a solution. Not everyone can open a wise account. KYC makes it difficult for people without proper documents.
One can accept that most of crypto is bad, and still see that some people have some use for it (for now). Like, nuance is a thing.
These are women in the north of Vietnam who know nothing about US dollar accounts and don't even speak english.
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-...
Ah yes let's counter an argument with something that is a couple years old.
This was brief during a time of high usage, which has also been fixed. Today, the average bitcoin transaction cost is a couple dollars.
https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_average_transaction_f...
Let's also not forget that there are a lot more chains now, where the fees are pennies.
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...
While we sit around waiting, the private sector stepped in with a (interim?) solution. What's wrong with that?
They might have some money but they may not have a home address.
