So, two stories from two different continents. First ex-politician Nigel Farage had his account with Coutts and co closed for political reasons:
And across the pond Bank of America has been closing bank accounts of Coinbase customers:
And the worst part of it is that we can't even say, "Bitcoin is the answer", thanks to the mempool debacle of 2018.
For those who can't remember, Jan 2018 was when it took at least three weeks for bitcoin transactions to clear the mempool and fees soared above $1,000.
Many retailers who had enabled payment by bitcoin disabled it - and have never reinstated it. They haven't even substituted with a more usable alt, they've just steered clear of crypto. All the hard work done from 2013 to 2018 to get retailers to accept crypto as a payment method got undone.
From 2018 onwards crypto became a commodity, not a payment method. That means even if you have crypto, you need access to an exchange to convert your crypto to fiat, and a bank account you can send that fiat to.
You can't just live in a crypto world paying for food and rent with your coins, by-passing the banking system. Because hardly any retailers accept crypto.
It's been one of the big failures of the crypto movement.
Yep, 2018 was bad.
However, now there is lightning network, BCH and LTC.
I hope that this bull run sees much onboarding for people taking crypto.
I do know lots of small sellers are taking whatever.
Retailers need to be persuaded to reinstate crypto as a payment method. But they won't. Once bitten, twice shy.