Does Bitcoin Help The Poor

[Hydrogen]

People ask why they should buy and support bitcoin.

One good reason.

Bitcoin helps the poor.  

#1  BTC provides banking services to the unbanked  Millions around the world who cannot qualify for a bank account use BTC to conduct business and make electronic transactions.

#2  BTC allows immigrants to send money to families back home  Immigrants from cuba, the middle east and other nations who travel to the USA, europe or asia. Use BTC to send funds to their families back home.

#3  BTC empowers nations with troubled economies like africa, the philippines and venezuela  It provides a means of income to help stabilize dwindling economies like venezuela's. Provides options and opportunities to those in africa and the philippines.

There are other examples but I think people might get the gist of this without them.

Those who wish to help the poor can donate money to charities or propose government assistance. Bitcoin may yet be another method.

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[bitmover]

People ask why they should buy and support bitcoin.

One good reason.

Bitcoin helps the poor.  

#1  BTC provides banking services to the unbanked  Millions around the world who cannot qualify for a bank account use BTC to conduct business and make electronic transactions.

#2  BTC allows immigrants to send money to families back home  Immigrants from cuba, the middle east and other nations who travel to the USA, europe or asia. Use BTC to send funds to their families back home.

#3  BTC empowers nations with troubled economies like africa, the philippines and venezuela  It provides a means of income to help stabilize dwindling economies like venezuela's. Provides options and opportunities to those in africa and the philippines.

There are other examples but I think people might get the gist of this without them.

Those who wish to help the poor can donate money to charities or propose government assistance. Bitcoin may yet be another method.

I don't think those people are really poor.
Poor people in Venezuela, Cuba, Phillippines, etc doesn't have access to information and cannot really get to know bitcoin.

But the mid-class of those countries can really have benefits from it. All those examples are fit for mid-class citizens with some information.

bitcoin is providing a fantastic redistribution of wealth. It's amazing to see how money is changing hands in every bull run. Early adopters (or however came first) are getting 5-10-30x their investment back!

I don't think this wealth redistribution is helping poor people directly, because those people who hold bitcoin aren't really poor in my conception of the term.

[Hydrogen]

I don't think those people are really poor.
Poor people in Venezuela, Cuba, Phillippines, etc doesn't have access to information and cannot really get to know bitcoin.

The hydroelectric dam in caracas venezuela provided free electricity to residents, which many utilized to mine bitcoins. There are other cities and regions in the world with free electricity who invest in bitcoin mining. Electricity being free makes mining available even to the poor. This is an old trend dating back more than 5 years. Back to the era when GPUs could be still be utilized to mine BTC.

Immigrants to the united states from cuba pay as much as 40% taxes and fees if they send money to their families in cuba using a bank wire transfer. It was common years ago for many to use bitcoin to avoid the 40% charge.

I've heard of homeless americans using bitcoin. The only monthly charge they need to cover is their smartphone.

[Darker45]

It depends on how help is to be construed here. Normally, the word help in the phrase help the poor refers to services, products, programs, and the like which would uplift the condition of the poor. In this case, Bitcoin is not really making the lives of these people better in terms of their economic status. To illustrate it more clearly, Bitcoin can never put food on a poor man's table. Bitcoin cannot send poor little children to school. Bitcoin cannot provide roof over the heads of a poor family. Bitcoin cannot provide clothing.

It also depends on which poor are we referring to. If we are referring to the poor as in poor, those who are mired in abject poverty, they are beyond the reach of Bitcoin. If Bitcoin provides banking services to the poor, it does not include those who are really poor. If Bitcoin provides cheap and fast remittance services to the poor, it still doesn't cover the real poor of society.

[michellee]

I agree bitcoin helps the poor, but that is only for people who want to try to make money from bitcoin. If they just wait without doing something, they will not get anything and can not solve their finances. If they only bought bitcoin without doing nothing except wait, that will not good because they need to have money, and they will not get that money if they do not do something. If they can buy and sell bitcoin, they will make money from the profit they can use to buy their daily needs.

[Obito]

I agree bitcoin helps the poor, but that is only for people who want to try to make money from bitcoin. If they just wait without doing something, they will not get anything and can not solve their finances. If they only bought bitcoin without doing nothing except wait, that will not good because they need to have money, and they will not get that money if they do not do something. If they can buy and sell bitcoin, they will make money from the profit they can use to buy their daily needs.

It does not help the poorest of the poor though, the only way you could have an access to bitcoin is by having a device that has an access on the Internet. I would say, that it is more like bitcoin help those who have the access to the Internet. The only way that bitcoin can help the poor is by the mercy of the community surrounding it, if they are willing to give back to the society then bitcoin indeed does help the poor.

[Psynthax]

I mean, at the early stage of bitcoin emergence it helps a lot of people sending money borderless across nations and that certainly helps poor people who do some work from far away but have family that needs the money in some remote area but still have internet access somehow or having family in some smaller cities.

However, The fee right now kinda killing it. I mean, a dollar is really precious for poor people and I don't think poor people using crypto for such thing is viable right now.

They could use alts somehow that has significantly lesser fee but it needs to be exchanged aswell, ERC20 token also out of question because the fee is ridiculous. Earning money from bitcoin also not as easy as most of people imagined, at this point it might help some poor people but definitely small portion of them.

[mersal]

Bitcoin helps every one to get their freedom of spending their money so obviously poor people also get included into it. Remittance using bitcoin help to save a lot of money and time and while converting into the fiat people also going to pay their taxes when the limit exceeds and this also avoid the middlemen who mostly use the hawala money for illegal purpose.

People only thinking about earning bitcoin but they forgot that they can buy bitcoin with their savings money instead of depositing it into the bank account which is the think that keeps the people still poor even after they make more and more salary.

[davis196]

#1  BTC provides banking services to the unbanked  Millions around the world who cannot qualify for a bank account use BTC to conduct business and make electronic transactions.

#2  BTC allows immigrants to send money to families back home  Immigrants from cuba, the middle east and other nations who travel to the USA, europe or asia. Use BTC to send funds to their families back home.

#3  BTC empowers nations with troubled economies like africa, the philippines and venezuela

#1 Is it really that difficult and expensive to create a bank account?I created mine back in 2014 and it cost me less than 10 EUR.

#2This can be true,but there's no proof that immigrants are massively using Bitcoin to send money to their families.Most of the immigrants are using Western Union,Moneygram and bank transfers.

#3 It true that the crypto industry creates jobs,but the employees have to have skills in programming,blockchain and/or smart contracts.Not every poor freelancer living in countries like Venezuela and the Philippines can apply for a job in the crypto industry.

I'm not hating on Bitcoin here,I just like to debate.

[Poker Player]

I agree with the views expressed above that it does not seem to help the poor much. One of the reasons I have not seen mentioned is the cost of fees. Bitcoin is very cheap if you want to move billions, but for small amounts, especially if you want to move them fast, it's expensive in percentage terms. In theory, Lighting Network will solve this, and there are some interesting projects like Strike, but we'll see.

[LogitechMouse]

As much as I can agree with the subject title, there is a part of my mind saying that how can be the poor have access to Bitcoin if they aren't equipped with the newest technology most of us right now are using because they are poor right?

Countries like Venezuela, Africa and the Philippines really have a troubled economy right now I agree with it but not all of the poor have access to Bitcoin. People here in our country aren't that much familiar with Bitcoin especially those poor people and when I say poor, they are the people who doesn't have any smartphone or they are struggling to eat 3x a day etc. People who have access into Bitcoin can't be considered as a poor but can't be considered as rich too (like a middle class person).

[NeuroticFish]

People who have access into Bitcoin can't be considered as a poor but can't be considered as rich too (like a middle class person).

That's correct.
Bitcoin needs internet. Poor people will most probably have no internet and/or no proper devices to access it (even seldomly from free hotspots).
Bitcoin has pretty big fees. And it's not necessarily the tx fees here. It's the costs imposed by the centralized exchanges (and the average Joe will most probably use those).
Bitcoin it quite heavily tech oriented. Poor people most probably don't have the education+skills combination to understand it, hence will either avoid it, either lose it.

All in all I think that the number of poor actually helped by Bitcoin is too small to count.
The middle class can already work for it. The upper middle class may already invest into it. But the poor? No. For them it's unfortunately pretty much out of reach.

[stompix]

#1  BTC provides banking services to the unbanked  Millions around the world who cannot qualify for a bank account use BTC to conduct business and make electronic transactions.

And what can you do just with bitcoins? Can you run your business only with bitcoin transactions and no bank?
Let's serious, if I would call all the business partners and suppliers of our farm and tell them we're going to stop using banks they will terminate our contracts the next second.

#3  BTC empowers nations with troubled economies like africa, the philippines and venezuela  It provides a means of income to help stabilize dwindling economies like venezuela's.

Yeah, the neverending Bitcoin will help Venezuela myth.
Bitcoin has skyrocketed in value if we were to believe all that close to propaganda level stuff about bitcoin usage there now they should be richer than Monaco.
But then reality kicks in.

Let me give you an example of how BTC is not helping the poor.

Low priority 61 sat/vB ($2.78)

Enjoy telling half of the world that bitcoin was designed for them, with fees that are only half of their daily wage.

Bitcoin helps the rich!!!
Bitcoin helped the ones that had thousands and tens of thousands of dollars to invest!
Bitcoin helps the ones that move millions with 2$, not the one paying 2$ for a 50$ transfer!

Bitcoin is the perfect example of capitalism where the ones with money make more money, no matter how much you try to spin it into a utopia, bitcoin was not designed to help the poor and will not miraculously make the people who have not a single penny rich!

[FlightyPouch]

I am seeing a lot of people that would be helped by this. I am from a province in the Philippines and to be honest, the population that uses banks is not that high. There are a lot of people that own an ATM but they rarely use it in terms of using bitcoin though, the problem surrounds the fact that most people are not that literate when it comes to these technologies and seeing them in the news that it is a scam builds the idea that it is a scam.

[Mauser]

People who have access into Bitcoin can't be considered as a poor but can't be considered as rich too (like a middle class person).

That's correct.
Bitcoin needs internet. Poor people will most probably have no internet and/or no proper devices to access it (even seldomly from free hotspots).
Bitcoin has pretty big fees. And it's not necessarily the tx fees here. It's the costs imposed by the centralized exchanges (and the average Joe will most probably use those).
Bitcoin it quite heavily tech oriented. Poor people most probably don't have the education+skills combination to understand it, hence will either avoid it, either lose it.

All in all I think that the number of poor actually helped by Bitcoin is too small to count.
The middle class can already work for it. The upper middle class may already invest into it. But the poor? No. For them it's unfortunately pretty much out of reach.

This is exactly my take on the topic  as well. Without a proper IT setup it is not really recommended to go into the crypto world. If you are at risk of losing internet access you will also lose access to your bitcoins and might not be able to trade them anymore. Even worse is if you PC is already old and dies and you don't have any proper backups in place, then you might lose your hole wallet and all your bitcoins forever. So before investing in bitcoins I would recommend to get a good PC and internet connection. With all the these things so, you probably need some starting capital which might be very difficult for a poor person.

[ethereumhunter]

I only think about how the poorest can use bitcoin because they need to know the basic thing how to use bitcoin, and they need to have access to meet local sellers if they want to sell their bitcoin. But I am sure that bitcoin help all people who want to make money, not just the poor because when they have bitcoin and hold it for a long time, and the price can increase very higher in the future, they will cover their daily needs, and they can live better than in the past.

[plvbob0070]

I somehow agree especially with what you enumerated but at some point, we can't generalize bitcoin to help the poor. It may be difficult for the lower class to have access to the bank but at the same time, they are the ones who also struggle with electricity and technological advancement so even access to bitcoin is still a hard task for them due to lack of means. As someone from the Philippines, bitcoin can indeed help people seeking opportunities like us. But as I have noticed, it's mostly the middle classes who can adopt and benefit from it since it's still difficult for the lower class to adopt and learn about bitcoin.

In conclusion, bitcoin can help the poor with its advantages but only selected people can take it.

[finaleshot2016]

In some parts, it actually helps the poor by giving opportunities to earn money through investing in it. But if we think generally, I think it's not really helping, 36% of the people are poor people and only 1% of the poor people are the ones who have the ability to access the internet so they can do investment.

I don't think we can count the others as poor if they already have the devices to access the internet like pc, tablets and smartphones.

[dondonk]

#1  BTC provides banking services to the unbanked  Millions around the world who cannot qualify for a bank account use BTC to conduct business and make electronic transactions.

#2  BTC allows immigrants to send money to families back home  Immigrants from cuba, the middle east and other nations who travel to the USA, europe or asia. Use BTC to send funds to their families back home.

#3  BTC empowers nations with troubled economies like africa, the philippines and venezuela  It provides a means of income to help stabilize dwindling economies like venezuela's. Provides options and opportunities to those in africa and the philippines.

from the things you mentioned, bitcoin doesn't really help the poor. they don't even understand about bitcoin. but there are great things that can be done with bitcoin. for example a charity event or a scholarship for the poor People.

[mk4]

I don't think those people are really poor.
Poor people in Venezuela, Cuba, Phillippines, etc doesn't have access to information and cannot really get to know bitcoin.

But the mid-class of those countries can really have benefits from it. All those examples are fit for mid-class citizens with some information.

bitcoin is providing a fantastic redistribution of wealth. It's amazing to see how money is changing hands in every bull run. Early adopters (or however came first) are getting 5-10-30x their investment back!

I don't think this wealth redistribution is helping poor people directly, because those people who hold bitcoin aren't really poor in my conception of the term.

You have a point, but "poor" doesn't necessarily mean that the person should be literally living in the streets without anything but themselves and dirty clothing. "Poor" can also mean actually having a home(mostly a crappy one), but simply doesn't have the funds to live normally/comfortably. This demographic consists of a good percentage(in the Philippines, idk in other places) whereas they totally rely on relatives abroad for money; and Bitcoin can definitely help in this case.

But yea, I totally agree that Bitcoin surely helps the middle class a lot more.