Hi Everyone

The TLDR for this post is: Why I'm bullish for the long-term crypto market, and how I explain it to my friends and family in an easy way so that they get the hype. 

1998

When I was young (In 1998 I was 13 years old), I got my first bank account at Absa bank (in South Africa where I stay). 

Back then, the best bank was the bank that gave you the best interest on money kept in the bank, I didn't have a lot of money back then, but the nice thing about being young is that family members give you cash for your birthday (man I hate growing up, no-one gives me free cash anymore).

2023

I closed my Absa account and moved to a different bank.

In 2023 the best bank is the one that takes the least amount of your money for fees, don't even bother looking for good interest rates, you need a lot (and I mean A LOT) of money in a savings account so that the interest earned is actually more than the banking fees that is charged. That is not the average Joe's fortune.

The above chart gives the historical interest rates of banks in South Africa, do note that in 1998 it was around 22%, which is mind-blowing.

Why crypto then?

When my friends want to get me excited, they ask me questions about crypto!

When I explain it to someone for the first time, it is usually something like this: How effective is your bank? (most people tell me they are happy-ish, or it's ok, or whatever). I then ask which bank are you using. (Bank A) Oh, so I am using Bank B and I want to send you money, so I send you 50 bucks and you'll have to wait about 48 hours for it to show in your bank huh? Unless I pay an extra fee for it to clear immediately. . . Usually, I am not eager to do that! 

Now let me suggest you are in USA or UAE or UK, you have a bank there, I want to send you 50 bucks, now you wait 7 days for the money to clear, plus I have to add a couple of hundred bucks so that you can get 50. . . See the image below.

These are fees charged by a specific bank in South Africa for international payments, I removed the bank name and replaced it with X.

How does crypto improve this?

So basically I continue with telling the story to my new friend. . . I have Matic (this can be XRP, ADA, or a lot of other coins). I want to send you 50 bucks, so I work out that 50 bucks are equal to 30 Matic (depending on which currency your buck is). I get your address, send your Matic and you have it in a minute, the fees are cheap and you don't have to pay extra to make it instant, it also doesn't matter where in the world you are, as long as you have a wallet that can receive Matic, and you gave me the correct address, it's done in a flash.

What is even better, is that while you have your Matic, you don't pay fees to your wallet for holding it there as your bank does, your wallet won't lend out your Matic to other people and charge interest on it like the bank does (and keep the interest to themselves) unless you connect to a protocol that does that and you get to keep the interest yourself (but that is a story for the next conversation friend).

But wait there's more

So you love your bank, and you gladly keep your money "safe" there and pay fees for that? The bank keeps your money "safe" by lending it to other users, and they charge the other user interest on your money to make them more money while charging you to keep your money "safe".

                                          Meanwhile at the bank!

Closing thoughts.

We have a global banking crisis on our hands due to fractional reserves, (that is when you put money in the bank and they lend out your money many times over, so your money isn't in the bank's possession at all times).

Your money isn't even safe in the bank, and the bank itself is ineffective, slow, and expensive. Why wouldn't you turn to crypto?

If you want to share my post with friends to help them see the light, please feel free! Also, comment if you liked the post.

Also if you haven't done that yet, join Binance and put your money where it is more sensible than the bank!

Thanks for reading.