> Too bad grocery stores, and most other businesses, don’t accept Bitcoin as payment.
This means that Bitcoin cannot bank the unbanked (and it never could).
I also wonder how you would "bank the unbanked" by requiring them to have an internet-connected smartphone to even be able to be banked by Bitcoin.
Edit Smartphone or other internet connected device
Smartphones are essential in daily life to many people, even if they happen to be homeless.
Hopefully in most countries it is possible to have an internet connection even if you don’t have a home address. I.e that even if no one lets you buy a mobile subscription it will still be possible to have prepaid SIM cards in your country. And that some of those prepaid providers do not require that you have a home address.
Yes they are, and that is increasingly a problem. Especially for the unemployed and the homeless. Because you're required to have a relatively expensive gadget with good internet connection just to barely function within society.
Urban areas where most homeless people are are blanketed with wifi.
2. You're tying people to the whims of internet availability
3. (not yet discussed: main reason for being unbanked is not enough money to even cover the initial required balance)
4. (not yet discussed: bitcoin transaction fees)
But sure, do tell me how great Bitcoin is for "banking the unbanked": since we already increasingly exclude people by requiring them to have internet-connected smartphones what's another such requirement which is additionally also much more expensive for all transactions.
In most urban areas, every fast food establishment, public library, coffee shop, grocery store and convenience store has Wi-Fi.
As long as a device has Wi-Fi and a free Google Voice or a dozen other VoIP apps, you don't even need cell service most of the time.
The homeless used it because the banks refused to service them and sleeping on the street with cash in your socks is dangerous. That made the volatility and fees involved in cycling dollars in and out of a Bitcoin ATM look like great deal relative to their lack of options before.
In the U.S., many (most?) who are homeless still manage to have cellphones.
An internet connection is not required to hold a private key. A hardware wallet would probably make the most sense.
you can trade signed transactions around like a file for a long time and then someone else goes to the internet cafe to bulk upload eventually.
no different than the practice of bundling credit card transactions together to reduce static fees, or settling a bunch of checks at the end of some time interval. it is a temporary trusted environment in all of those systems including bitcoin, no big deal. keep track of anybody whose payment failed.
bitcoin transactions can be signed and traded where only one party has an internet connection.
bitcoin transactions can be signed and traded where neither party has an internet connection.
it just has to be broadcast and added to the chain eventually. so even in a world without ubiquitous internet this concept doesn't go away, it will always exist in some form or anybody can recreate it or perpetuate a blockchain that has fallen into disuse.
At this point it's much easier and cheaper to open a bank account for every homeless person.
Other points: Some of the points, and others, covered here: https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=36547210
With all the piles of would-bes, and justs, and perhaps in this thread (an inevitability in any crypto discussion) these pretend benefactors could just open bank accounts for the homeless, and it would be actually cheaper, and more beneficial.
See also other points: https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=36547210