My personal reason for supporting crypto/DeFi: banks are an institutional tax on the poor.

When I was growing up in Canada, I was poor. There were days in my teens where I literally ate rice and sugar for dinner. Don't ask. When I was in university, I was so broke that I couldn't even afford top ramen. If you are a Torontonian than you will know what I mean by this: I literally ate cheap No Name (that's a brand) from No Frills on most days. But none of that stung more than how my bank, TD Canada Trust, treated me.

One day I was so fucking hungry and had no cash at all, I went to the store to buy the usual cheap No Name ramen from the above mentioned grocery store. I didn't have enough cash. I think the price was like 2 to 3$. So I used my bank card instead. I was certain I had enough money in there for what I wanted to buy. My bank declined it. I was certain I had enough cash in there. I put the grocery back and went to go check my balance.

I didn't have a student account. I just had a regular account. Not sure if it would have made that much of a difference. But they had charged me about 11$ for my account. Later I would find out that if I had a balance of 3000 to I think 5000$, the monthly fee would be waved.

Now my balance was in the negative.

That wasn't the worst part. The worst part was that they had charged me an over draft fee of (I'm sorry but this was a decade ago since I banked with them) I think 45$. Maybe it was 25$.

But for me even if the fee was 5$ it still meant I couldn't eat. They had taken my last few dollars, charged me for trying to withdraw money I didn't have instead of simply declining the transaction.

When I called them later and they told me that I could buy overdraft protection for I think 10$ to 20$ a month.

I went from being broke to in debt and broke. And miserably hungry.

I saw this and still see this as a tax on the poor. If you live paycheck to paycheck how the duck you afford to keep a balance that can help you wave the monthly fee? This is just another fucking stupid form of tax on simply being poor. But if you can hold 5000, the bank rewards you worry 0 fees, etc.

You know how much groceries I could have bought with 50$? A months worth. Now I had to pay my fucking bank instead.

Now I live in Taiwan. Banks here are so fucking stupid, it boggles my mind.

They open when I'm at work and close before 99% of the population finish work: I think 9 AM and close at 330 PM. I finish work at 430.

To do any banking I have to take time off which fucking costs me money.

During the pandemic I have been able to go to the bank without any issues and I swear I feel like I'm at an Old Folks Home; this stupid system is designed to cater to elderly people who don't fucking work. Are retired.

Seriously, 🦆 traditional banking.

If this is how badly I have it in a developed nation, how badly do poor people in developing nations have it?

Being able to create your own defacto bank account through a wallet, such as a Bitcoin wallet, and be able to do business without paying any fees to the banks must be an empowering feeling.

Crypto is the tool of the poor. It will empower the poor and revolutionize banking to those exploited by Traditional banking.