Unbanked for Buying Bitcoin: How the Financial System Criminalizes Crypto

When we think of the unbanked, we envisage citizens of developing nations who lack the means and documentation to obtain access. But you don’t have to be a Mongolian goat herder to find yourself financially excluded. In the West, relatively affluent citizens are having their banking services withdrawn suddenly and without warning. Their ‘crime’? Buying and selling bitcoin.

Also read: 10,000 American Cryptocurrency Owners Will Receive Warning Letters From the IRS

A 20-Year Banking Relationship Broken by Bitcoin

Banks, like politicians, are a necessary evil. Few people wax lyrical about them, but begrudgingly accept that they are an unavoidable part of civilized society. In the 20 years I’ve banked with Natwest, I’ve had plenty of cause to bitch about them. Their service is poor and their products inadequate, and like most of their kind, will have gone the way of print media in a decade, as better forms of money and better means of doing business…