Cryptocurrency is the new type of insurance.
Storytelling time
My guess is that a lot of people had an experience of being locked away from their belongings for any possible reason. That's not a great feeling. I found it the hard way.
Few years ago I decided to pack my backpack and go on a vacation to Vietnam. After arriving in Ho Chi Minh City, I found out that I couldn't buy myself a sandwich with a debit card. Vendor tried several options in his terminal, but result was the same. That left me scratching my head.
By the time I arrived to a village I chose to stay in, I've made several attempts to reach my funds, in vein. Although I had a reasonable amount of cash with me, it was not enough to last whole vacation.
Eventually I found a guy with a terminal that could read my card. He kindly changed me some money (pretty sure it wasn't his typical day-to-day business), and for the rest of my travel I used whatever cash I could collect from this shop.
Fast forward a year (yes Koreans, not up), I'm in Israel with my trusty backpack and no idea of what to do for the next three weeks. I try to buy water - and have a deja vu moment. My card isn't working. Once again, I had some spare cash, but Israel is quite expensive. Especially for foreigners. And cash supplies are running out quickly. It was quite an intense feeling - walking from ATM to ATM, trying again and again to gain access to the rest of my funds.
Where's the money, Lebowski?By the time I got to Jerusalem, I had less than few days of provision. I could probably ask friends and family for some help, but decided to exhaust my options first - and once again found a sole spot where my card got accepted.
One would ask: have you contacted your bank? I did. They looked at my card and found nothing wrong with it. And it took almost a week for them to do that.
Anyway, I took as much cash as I was comfortable carrying in new country and moved on. However after awhile even that stock has come to an end. And I was hundreds of kilometers away from the one place I could replenish it. And that was the moment when I remembered about bitcoin.
Thing is, that after Vietnam fiasco I decided to look a bit more into this new asset, and bought a bit. Just to fool around with it, understand how it works. And by the time when I remembered about it, it's price was enough to cover my last week of travel. So I found some local bitcoin vendors who were chilling in a garage, explained them my situation and in five minutes had hard cash on hands. To say that I was relieved - it would be an understatement.
This was the first time when I really felt the importance to have some cryptocurrency. And next year, by the time I arrived to Brazil, I had new phone with some cryptowallets with several assets on it. I was ready for the uncertainty of Rio Carnival. Or at least I thought I was. I got robbed on a third day of staying there. My phone, along with some money and jewelry disappeared into to the warm night with half naked guy armed with a kitchen knife.
I had enough funds to end the trip on a high note, but by the time I got home and got myself a new phone, Dash got five times higher and investments I made paid for the whole trip. It was February 2017 and I got lucky.
Since then I see cryptocurrency as an insurance. It's by no means a panacea, but being diversified in crypto could save your trip. Or save your money from sudden devaluation of your national currency[1]. Or you're fighting against corrupt and/or oppressive government, and your bank stops giving you your hard earned cash[2],[3]. A war could break out in most peaceful regions[4]. Mankind is nine meals away from anarchy. Would you bet on that this will never happen to you or people you love?