The Unbanked

1.4 billion adults worldwide have no bank account. Not a savings account, not a current account, not access to any formal financial institution.

The reasons vary. Some live in regions with no banking infrastructure. Some can’t meet the documentation requirements. Some are excluded by financial institutions that don’t find them profitable enough to serve. Some simply don’t trust the system after generations of watching it fail.

The consequences are concrete: they can’t save safely, can’t receive international payments, can’t access credit, can’t participate in the formal economy. Their only option is physical cash, which can be lost, stolen, inflated away, or inaccessible when they need it most.

Bitcoin requires none of the things banks require. No passport. No address. No credit history. No minimum balance. No approval from any institution.

A smartphone and an internet connection — increasingly available even in developing economies — is sufficient to hold and transfer value globally.

This is not a hypothetical. It’s happening. In sub-Saharan Africa, where mobile money systems like M-Pesa already showed what financial access without traditional banks could look like, Bitcoin and Lightning Network are building on that foundation. In Southeast Asia, in Latin America, in parts of the Middle East — people with phones but without banks are using Bitcoin to receive payments, save value, and participate in the global economy.

The financial inclusion argument for Bitcoin is not the primary reason most readers of this newsletter are interested in it. But it’s worth understanding. The same properties that make Bitcoin valuable for investors make it transformative for the unbanked.

Tomorrow: governments that banned Bitcoin — and what happened next.

— The Daily Bit