It calls for circumstances, being poor and residing somewhere in a rural environment, instead of using banks you decided to hold little savings in Bitcoin, it is too risky because of Bitcoin volatility, your $100 used to save in Bitcoin will not remain exactly that amount, it will either go up or down it can never be stable no matter how consolidated it is.
Exactly. This problem must be addressed if Bitcoin really is meant to be a tool for the "unbanked".
Even if volatility is lowering, it's currently not realistic to bring it down to fiat currency levels. However, perhaps in a couple of years it could equal gold volatility. It would make a huge difference if bear markets didn't go that low. In the case of gold, rarely a bear market goes below 50% of the previous ATH. That would be at least useful for people who want to save money for a long time and can afford a little loss.
I think that you are seriously overestimating the volatility of Bitcoin these days and underestimating the volatility of most currencies of the world. The fact is, most people especially poor people are forced to use the currency of their country. They have limited knowledge or possibilities to use anything else. Take a look at these sources.
https://bitbo.io/volatility/.
https://coinedition.com/lower-volatility-high-returns-ark-invests-big-ideas-2025-report-strengthens-btcs-digital-gold-case/https://www.tradingview.com/symbols/BVOL/?timeframe=ALLI'm not sure if these is a comparison website that shows many currencies but you get the idea here. Sure it could be better, but it is not as bad anymore. How many currencies have basically collapsed in the last 2 decades?
Until then, crypto firms however could be creative and offer hedging tools. For example, it would be nice if at my local Bitcoin exchange I could also buy Bitcoin options, which can be one of these tools. You could for example buy a put option to sell your Bitcoins to a price of 70% of the current value to be protected against a major loss. One could pay for these options using a part of the profit in bull markets. Another possible alternative is to design a kind of "insurance" against bear markets.
Doing hedging with additional financial instruments like options would enable you to hold your BTC in self-custodial wallets (Bitcoin Core, Electrum, Sparrow, Ginger ...). You would only have to manage the hedging contracts on a centralized platform.
It's even possible that the hedging / option contracts could also be decentralized, but you would then have to use stablecoins which have their own risks.
I strongly think that the primary problems are accessibility, usability and the availability of options. Take a look at one financial example. You can use BTC to get a collateral but typically for a LTV of 50% and an interest rate of more than 10% per year. This is still quite bad compared to traditional financial options and there is added risk as now a third party holds your Bitcoin.