Oh, someone has a different opinion than you do? Must be a troll. Turn on Ignore-Mode! *LALALALALALALALA*
in all seriousness, i don't see the point in providing banking for people who can't even afford food. please explain to me.
Andreas Antonopolous talks about the opportunity for "banking" services opening up doors for the 3rd World in many of his talks.
He seems like a very smart guy to me, But im not gonna google to find some alleged arguments that he made for the sake of this discussion...you have to realize this is a bit ridiculous. either post the argument here, or let it be.
I remember a few arguments he made alongside "people save fees if they send money back home to their families" and something like people could use cellphones and sms for obtaining bitcoins and so on, but this all just affects people who already are doing well enough to afford a cellphone and its fees, and of course all food and shelter, or they probably wouldn't get a cellphone. So it's not really about the majority of people who are starving. that was my point - maybe in some circumstances it would help some people, but i don't really see any great solutions of big problems there...but of course i might have missed something. im far from beeing an expert on this topic aswell.
The reason people refer to you as a troll is that you find exceptions with everything, and keep the argument going. There is no response that will ever make you say "Oh. Yeah. Good point." and get up from your computer and walk away. Certain people just morph the argument into 900 other topics, as you negate each of their misconceptions. Thats when people like BitChick "bow out". It becomes a fruitless endeavour. You should recognize this about yourself maybe, and adjust how you debate/disagree with things.
To answer your question, Andreas has pointed out that even the poorest people in Africa with no running water, have satellite dishes on their mud huts. Apparently they save forever to buy one, which powers their cell phone and updates it. And no. Cell service is not $99 a month like it is here in the USA. :-/ Their cell phone enables them to transact money and carry out communication with the rest of their world. Its that important. These same cell phones which are currently using a text service to send and receive funds, can be used with Bitcoin.
There are 2 companies in africa right now working to build Bitcoin texting services. Your question was, why is this relevant to poor people, to have banking opportunities? As per Andreas, it opens up a whole new world of investing, saving, appreciation in value, transferring of funds, and participation on the world stage that they never had before. Sure, some will do nothing with that. Others who are poor but still brilliant, will see the immense opportunities in having access to these things, and will literally build businesses and transform their lives. And yes, the remittances market is a hundreds-million dollar market that Bitcoin will assuredly take over. Western union charges the poorest people in the poorest countries the highest fees to send money home to family. $40 on a $100 transfer sometimes. Having that $40 available to the family instead, times millions of families, can singlehandedly pump hundreds of millions of dollars back to the poorest people on the planet. The list goes on and on.
I would advise you to stop being lazy about your education on Bitcoin, and spend the next week listening to *every* speech from Andreas Antonopoulos on youtube. Specifically the Joe Rogan one, which is 3 hours long. If you don't have the energy or interest, then be aware that you are missing about 95% of the pertinent information on the topic you're debating.
-B-