How To Be Your Own Bank - Be Unbanked With Bitcoin

TRANSCRIPT

Hi, everybody. Welcome to Episode 36 of the Daily Decrypt, the newest independent members of the Let's Talk Bitcoin network. I am your host, Amanda, and today's special episode is brought to you by NuBits. Four whistleblowers just days ago came forward about war crimes committed by the U.S. military and Jesselyn Radack reports that their bank accounts and credit cards have all just been frozen. Luckily, for these and all future whistleblowers being unbanked is no longer a problem, thanks to Bitcoin.

I, myself, have been unbanked for more than two years, and so I thought that today I would tell you exactly how I do it.

First order of business, getting paid. Whether you have an employer or you are self-employed you basically start out the same in this step, in that you just ask. Would you pay me in Bitcoin? So let's say you have an employer. The first step would be to ask, "Hey, would you pay me in Bitcoin?" A tactic I've used in the past is, "Hey, I will work for five percent less than you pay me right now if you pay me in Bitcoin."

Same goes if you are self-employed and have multiple clients. Tell your clients that you will give five percent off your services should they pay in Bitcoin. This sort of incentive is enough for a lot of people, but say it doesn't work in your situation, and your employer still just wants to pay you in fiat, which is government money. This is not a problem.

Simply ask them to write you a check, and when you receive that check, you either go to the bank branch of the bank that they use and just cash it in person, or if you would like to skip on the time and effort that it takes to go to the bank, ask one of your friends who goes to the bank all of the time.

If you can just write your check over to them, they deposit it, they give you the cash. Give them five extra bucks for their time. Bada-bing-bada-boom, you are now either getting paid in Bitcoin or you are converting your paycheck to cash directly. You still don't need a bank, and if you're on the job hunt and looking to get paid in Bitcoin. Check out the description section for some excellent resources.

Step two. Getting bitcoins if you have cash and getting cash if you have bitcoins. You're going to always want to have a stash of bitcoins, and a stash of fiat cash as an unbanked person, and so the question is how do you get one when you currently only have the other. I'll tell you. Check out LocalBitcoins.com where you can find lots of people in any major city and even some not-so-major cities who are willing to meet up with you at a Starbucks, and do an exchange cash for bitcoins.

You might even make a new friend.

I know I have or check out wallofcoins.com, where you can deposit cash at anybody's bank account, and then Wall of Coins acts as escrow agent and sends you the bitcoin. Now you have both cash and bitcoins still being an unbanked person.

Step three, putting a roof over your head. In tech-savvy cities like San Francisco, California or Manchester, New Hampshire, you will find that there already exist companies which accept bitcoins directly for rent, and real estate companies which accept bitcoin directly for home purchases. Outside of these options, I have found success in just asking landlords, "Hey, would you accept Bitcoin for rent?", and sometimes it will even keep the utilities in their name so you can pay all of your rent, and all of your utilities in one single bitcoin bill every month.

And if those attempts at negotiation fail that's where your cash comes.

Utilities, utilities, utilities. Okay. So say, your landlord doesn't keep the utilities in their name. How do you pay your utilities without a bank account? There's this good old fashion thing called a money order. So you'll make good friends with your local grocery store or CVS or whatever, and they write checks for you. It's like old school has become new again. You take your cash, you go to counter, you say, "I want a money order for thirty-five, ninety-five made out to XYZ power company."

You give them the cash, and they give you a piece of paper that's like a check except it's called a money order. Then you pay your utilities. Done.

Now that you have a roof over your head, how are you going to get food in your belly and clothes on your back. This is where gift cards which are sold widely for bitcoin on the internet play a huge part. So let's talk about food first. If you're the grocery shopping type, Target and Whole Foods are going to become your best friends, because you can get gift cards for these places with bitcoin. Gift cards that come with 3% cash back. Let me remind you.

And if you're the kind who likes to eat out there are like 40 or 50 restaurants which accept gift cards that can all be bought with bitcoin, and here's a pro tip. There's a ton of dry food options on Amazon, like, nuts and jerky and dried fruit and canned food and all of those, and all of these can be had at a discount by using a Purse.io to shop on Amazon using bitcoin. And for clothing, again, the gift card stuff. Banana Republic, Gap, Marshalls, T.J. Maxx, Burlington, Casual Male, all of this stuff, gift cards. Done.

Or if you're the adventurous type, I have ordered clothes and shoes from both Amazon and Overstock.com all with bitcoin.

Now that you're housed, and fed, and clothed, how you're going to get around. Again, the bitcoin economy comes to our rescue. You can get flights using CheapAir or BTCtrip. You can get hotels using CheapAir or Expedia or if you're the driving type keep your car in tune with Jiffy Lube gift cards for Bitcoin. Hello, and pay for the gas in cash because I have not found any gas cards for bitcoin yet, but I'm sure they're coming.

So now you're housed, fed, clothed, transported, and of course, the next step in Maslow's hierarchy of needs is computers. Get your electronics for bitcoin using TigerDirect or Dell or Newegg. Even pay your phone bill. If you're using a prepaid AT&T or T-Mobile plan go to Bitrefill.com to top-up your minutes with bitcoin. You use a Skype number, you need to top up Skype, no problem. There's a gift card for that too. Used a VPN to keep the snoops out, huh! No, VPN worth their salt doesn't take bitcoin.

And now that your needs are all taken care of, what about the cherry on top, like, entertainment, Xbox games and steam codes. All available for Bitcoin online. Gift cards to the Google Play store, to iTunes, to Spotify, all available for bitcoin. Even Movietickets.com has hundreds of participating movie theaters which will all gladly accept your bitcoin for a movie ticket, and that, my friends, is how you live unbanked or rather how you can be your own bank.

The Daily Decrypt would like to say thank you to the whistleblowers of war, and if you would like to further your efforts against war while simultaneously continuing it to diversify yourself into more kinds of sound money the gold and silver dealer Roberts and Roberts, this Bitcoin Black Friday will be donating all of their profit to Antiwar.com, and if you're concerned about the volatility of Bitcoin price as you become your own bank our sponsor NuBits totally has you taken care of there.

NuBits is a crypto currency just like bitcoin, except that it is pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar at all times. So using the NuDroid NuBits wallet app you can hold NuBits knowing that they're going to keep their dollar value at all times convert to Bitcoin right before you pay for any of these things and bam!, NuBits are accepted everywhere that accepts Bitcoin, and this is all just scratched the surface.

Leave your tips on how you are your own bank in the comments section below for these whistleblowers, and all future people who want to be their own bank. Muah!