Right now, a lot of people are facing money problems that they have never seen before, and things like overdue credit card bills and overdraft fees can cause anxiety to spike through the roof, especially when you don't know what else is coming and how much worse things could get. When you don't have food, you can't eat paper. When there is no electricity, your bank account is worthless. If your bank disappears completely, taking your life savings with it, what do you do then?

These are problems many people will soon be facing, and I suspect it will be an insurmountable task for most, especially when it hits everyone at once. This is likely to be a good year for crypto to gain wide adoption, if we use take this opportunity to educate those who have been resistant to the change. If you have family, neighbors, or friends that are worrying about how they are going to pay bills when they can't earn a traditional paycheck, show them how to set up a mobile wallet and send them a little BCH.

If you have paper cash, or equivalent digital funds stored in a bank account for "liquidity," you should be aware that those numbers are in fact arbitrary and worthless, in the long run. All of it can vanish in a split second if the bank goes under, which is why many people are now moving to crypto as a way to hold onto their accumulated wealth.

The Poverty Trap

I want to highlight a major problem with the banking system that is meant to trap people in poverty and keep them there forever. In 2016 the bubble in my personal life popped. I lost my $21/hr job and that started a financial avalanche that left me homeless and penniless. I spent the better part of three years trying to survive while not being able to get a bank account due to not having a permanent address. No bank wanted anything to do with me. My state ID was expired and I couldn't renew without a residential address. I could barely afford a PO Box, but banks and government require a physical address so that wasn't good enough. Finding paying work was difficult without an ID.

I could use cash, but for anything electronic, my only option was prepaid debit cards, which are severely limited in acceptance (especially online) and also charge fees for almost everything so even cashing checks costs 10% or more. Withdrawing cash costs fees unless you travel 10 miles to visit the only branch, even checking your balance costs fees if you use an out of network ATM, and that fee can cause an additional overdraft fee, and the cycle just never ends. Even having no bills, no cell phone, and no loans, in a situation like that, it's very hard to save anything.

I began to wonder, what's the point? If I find a gig that pays $1000 and pays me with a check, it takes 3-5 days to show up in the account, and after paying back the negative balance, paying for food, gas, and getting other things I need, there's barely anything left. How could things get so screwed up? Was someone thinking that by charging people who are completely broke even more fees to add to their debt (obviously meant as a disincentive) that it would somehow motivate the slaves to work harder? It dawned on me that maybe the answer was yes.

The reason bank accounts can go negative is because they are just arbitrary numbers with no real value. The numbers represent your energy, but at the same time they are controlled by forces which are acting against your interests. That should give you pause. The US Dollar is a private fiat currency owned by the Federal Reserve, and it's based entirely on the concept of debt, which you pay back with your energy spent at your job. We say the Fed prints its currency "out of thin air," but really it's conjured out of the future - your future.

It is debt "charged" (like a battery) to future generations to perpetuate their slavery.

The Crypto Exit Ramp

Bitcoin was created not as debt, but as a proof of work based asset. For that reason, it cannot EVER go negative. Unlike the US Dollar, there is no such thing as debt in bitcoin. Unlike the US Dollar, no trusted institution is required to hold your bitcoin, and unlike the US Dollar, there is no way for anyone to automatically draw from or penalize your account with fees without your knowledge.

It can also be easily hidden and more easily divisible. This makes it more ideal money than gold for some use cases.

For the situation we're talking about here, one such use case is an off grid savings account, also known as cold storage. This can be as simple as a paper wallet or a piece of engraved steel. These are also good ways to back up your primary or secondary wallets.

Secondary wallets are another use case. Many wallets are cross-platform compatible, so you can, for instance, access the same hot wallet on multiple devices, set up view/deposit-only wallets, or have a different wallet for every device you have, to use for different purposes. For groups, you can have multi-signature wallets to function like a joint bank account.

As a fiat exit ramp, things are getting more difficult. It may not be possible much longer to trade between USD and BTC/BCH. This may make barter trade more common. More businesses may offer to pay employees in crypto in the near future. Everyone should at least set up a wallet on a smartphone and learn how to send and receive transactions peer to peer with those around them. As the economy continues crashing over the next few months/years, those who survive will need to understand the basics of being a crypto user, and understanding the technical and economic side should probably be secondary.

Take it from someone who has been there: these are the basic functions of crypto technology that people need to start learning about now if we want to maintain control over our rights and property.