[trompetenaccoun]

Horrible. I've heard similar stories but this one's the worst by far. This shouldn't be allowed to ever happen again, such sudden closures without warning need to be illegal.

The issue is banking is highly regulated but a lot of the regulation is about AML, terrorism screening and such. Not actually protecting customers from abuse but rather the other way around - banks are taking precautions to protect themselves from customers. Some of the regulation is also the result of decades of lobbying efforts by major players, making it extremely hard for new ones to compete. Banks are rarely held accountable because for some reason most regular people are fine with this or don't understand it.

There is a solution - not sure if everyone's ready to hear it yet: Decentralized finance. Good luck to a bank trying to shut down your self-hosted Ethereum wallet. Banks provide important services and will continue to exist, but giving them full unchecked control over our life savings and finance is mad. There are a lot of other issues with the current system, and many people don't really understand the contracts they're signing, including that they don't legally own "their money" in the bank account in most cases (they're creditors). But the question of effective control over ones own funds is the most crucial one to me.

[mcny]

> There is a solution - not sure if everyone's ready to hear it yet: Decentralized finance.

I want the pendulum to swing the other way. Everybody gets and gets to keep forever an account at the Reserve Bank.

> self-hosted Ethereum wallet

I'm sorry. The technology might be fine But I simply do not trust the people involved with cryptocurrency. Not just the scammers such as SBF, I don't trust the "victims" to make wise choices. They see this as a get rich quick scheme. They are not "victims". They are money hungry speculators. Most don't even host a full node. Even people who have a means to do so Such as this guy tech deals on YouTube. The miners want to turn a good profit when they should be happy to just break even. The transaction costs are still too high. It should be very close to if not exactly zero dollars. The block chain should not be a place to make huge profits. The prices should not go "to the moon". In fact, you shouldn't even be thinking of the price of your cryptocurrency with respect to the US Dollar. This already means we lose if we constantly compare Bitcoin oh sorry ethereum and the dollar.

[mattdesl]

> I want the pendulum to swing the other way. Everybody gets and gets to keep forever an account at the Reserve Bank.

Overhauling the financial system to ensure that citizens cannot have their accounts revoked on a whim sounds like a nice pipe dream. I am cynical we will ever see that in our lifetime, as countries prefer to have full control over their citizen's wallets (e.g. see Canada enacting Emergencies Act to curb protests).

[dwighttk]

Also doesn’t help noncitizens like ggg(however many,top of the thread)p

[suoduandao3]

in a multipolar world though, a country being able to do that weakens the currency severely in international markets. countries may like keeping their populace under their thumbs, but they may have overriding concerns - at least that's my hope.

[kcatskcolbdi]

> I want the pendulum to swing the other way. Everybody gets and gets to keep forever an account at the Reserve Bank.

I believe this would result in more instances of funds being frozen when under the suspicion of doing something/being associated with someone doing something illegal.

Just as Social Security was promised to never be used as a national ID, but was ultimately used as an identification mechanism[1], accounts with the Federal Reserve would be sold as a way to have a permanent bank account, but would ultimately be used as a way of implementing financial ruin upon those who choose non-compliance.

Conversely, I also believe crypto serves the same end. There is nothing a financial regulatory body would enjoy more than having every transaction take place on a publicly auditable ledger.

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/26/weekinreview/the-nation-n...

[nativeit]

Providing the account != requiring its use

[phil21]

That's what folks said about credit and debit cards to the curmudgeony folks like me 30 years ago.

Now I can walk to a half dozen places that won't do business with you if you have neither.

It would likely be defacto required, just line SSN is today. Sure you can "opt-out" - but at severe expense to your life.

[MrDrMcCoy]

Isn't it the law for a business in the US to accept legal tender?

[efreak]

There is no federal law that says all businesses must accept cash.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220127202620/https://www.treas...

[ricardobayes]

"Crypto" as a whole broke the circle of trust for most ordinary people. Mocking cryptos now became so mainstream that UK television ran ads, calling out crypto believers.

Not to mention all of crypto on and off ramps are incredibly centralized.

[trompetenaccoun]

>Not to mention all of crypto on and off ramps are incredibly centralized

The major ones, yes. That's because most of the decentralized ones got shut down or closed voluntarily out of fear of getting prosecuted on ML charges. LocalBitcoins is a good example, first they got their site blocked in authoritarian countries like Russia. Then they had to restrict service in some US states and other more liberal places as well. Finally they shut down operations completely.

The question is if people still want to fight for such liberties or not. There are multiple countries working on CBDCs and to abolish or at least severely restrict cash payments. In many EU countries this is already reality. For example France has a limit of 1000€ for residents.

Cash is a quasi anonymous form of payment, in self-custody. Throughout history something similar has always existed, be it metal coins or even earlier forms of money. There is a real danger as we're on our way to go fully digital to lose control over this freedom to governments and/or banks.

[gentleman11]

Crypto however is not anonymous. It’s the opposite: a permanent immutable public record (ledger) of your transactions and holdings. That has always been unappealing for many people

[phil21]

So we're at the "then they laugh at you?" stage of the game it seems?

I guess that happened years ago and we are fully in the "and then they fight you" portion of the timeline.

[coldtea]

No, more likely it's the "I've invented the perpetual motion machine" game, and we're at the "No, you didn't, it's snake-oil" stage.

[ricardobayes]

I personally don't think so. I think there are very, very few people actually believing in real-world usage of cryptocurrencies. Most are in it for speculative reasons.

[6510]

I was really interested in building things for bc really early on but the medium attracted nothing but pump and dump folk. The analogy would be to talk about growing your own food with people running mega farms.

[joshjje]

I agree. It would be so much easier if everyone had a government bank account just like a SSN, that they could use (or not use), and also have other private checking/savings/etc accounts like now if they wish. It would also help teach people how to use them.

[kylebenzle]

I agree, to the point that it's getting harder for me to even have any sympathy when I hear about this issue.

Anyone without a good portion of their net worth in crypto is making a huge and obvious mistake.

[jurynulifcation]

So you're admitting to having a self-interested stake in getting others to convert a portion of their net worth to crypto, no? Since getting others to buy in would directly provide liquidity to your own position. Tell me, what customer or financial protections are in place for your crypto position. Are there any? At all? Or if the drive holding that "good portion" disappears, then so do your assets, yes? Having a bank close my account sucks. A lot. The answer isn't to buy into an even more broken system built on the exploitation of those looking to buy into a get-rich scheme. The answer is to hold cash for times where your bank isn't available. Cash depreciates in value, sure, but at least it's not locked into a guaranteed deflationary spiral that ends with guaranteed marginal returns. At least my position in cash doesn't pit me in a game against people who bought in cheaper and stand to make exponentially more than I can, off my back even.

[winternett]

Crypto bros are the guy who used to stand in the alley with a trench coat full of watches... Hah.

We're doomed if this type of crowd sourcing of scams sets in without people noticing and calling it out.

I bought $100 of BTC about 1 year ago when it was at $24,000, just the other day it was at $34,000 and my account said my crypto was at $102. That's all I needed to know about it.

[jstarfish]

Note that his story closes with the admission that he was given his money back. When funds get stolen, they can be clawed back (barring issues of institutional willingness to do so).

For everyone whose Bitcoin wallets get stolen, there is no recourse. There is no customer service number to call, no court in which to file suit, and no service agreement over which to sue. Unless you live in some war-torn country where you don't know what government you'll live under tomorrow, putting a good portion of your net worth in an asset so easily stolen (or lost to something as banal as a forgotten encryption key) is a fool's errand.

Disambiguating the above sentiment from another context, we had a huge problem with Indian immigrants becoming victims of home invasions once it became apparent to opportunists that they accumulate and hoard large amounts of gold in their homes.

If you live in a first-world country, playing by third-world rules will pit you against third-world opponents.

[fragmede]

A crypto currency pegged to the dollar won't "go to the moon". If you're looking for that, there's USDT.

Unfortunately, when trying to pick a coin, it's like trying to choose the best programming language. Each coin has its own ins and outs, there isn't one that is the best. They have their own time and place. A lot of people see this and want to use them in inappropriate places, but doesn't mean there aren't appropriate reasons for them, even if they're few and far between.

[Quindecillion]

> Each coin has its own ins and outs, there isn't one that is the best. They have their own time and place.

This is just wishy washy rubbish trying to appear "diplomatic" and "balanced". Oh sure, you can mint some monkey jpegs or construct a needlessly complex and public smart contract for some esoteric "use case", but the truth is the majority of people in the world don't want or need those things.

People just want a money that works. You can send or receive it instantly across international borders, that no one can stop, and it doesn't lose it's value over the years.

Bitcoin is the only game in town, the "crypto bros" just don't realise it yet because they can make obscene amounts of money from pump and dump schemes with flashy marketing about "use cases" and "yield".

Wake up or get burned, again and again.

[vikingerik]

> that no one can stop

People don't want that. They do want their financial transactions to be stopped and reversed in the event of theft, fraud, merchant error, defective goods, unprovided services, etc. That's why Bitcoin and the other cryptos haven't caught on universally, there's no recourse when something goes wrong. (Really, Bitcoin just defines any redress as out of scope.)

[politician]

> People just want a money that works. You can send or receive it instantly across international borders, that no one can stop, and it doesn't lose its value over the years.

Pure fantasy.

On cross-border trade that cannot be interdicted: There is no reason for any state to deny itself from sanctioning its adversaries.

On currency valuation: An economic zone has many many actors making independent decisions which in aggregate affects the value of the zone’s currency. The ability to debase a currency by over issuing it is identical to the ability to expand the supply to provide liquidity to a growing economy.

[kylebenzle]

Agree, but BTC stopped being "Bitcoin" as defined as "peer tomorrow digital cash" long ago.

Now BCH is closer to Bitcoin and still works great. BTC is just a ponzi scheme for morons at this point

[plagiarist]

I was under the impression that all of the "pegged to the dollar" coins are too fragile for storing money long term. But USDT dropped down to 94 cents during the crash I was thinking of when others more thoroughly collapsed. What's the difference there?

[sgjohnson]

> But USDT dropped down to 94 cents during the crash

While that is true, they were redeeming them 1:1. So you could buy them at a 6% discount on the exchange, but redeem them, for free 6%.

Few people did because enough of them thought that USDT is going to the ground, causing the discount.

[kylebenzle]

It's actually INCREDIBLY easy.

99% are scam to be ignored, so really just looking at the oldest "coins" works.

Basically there is only BTC, BCH, XMR and ETH to choose from (of you cant tell the rest are scams that's on you).

Between those 4, BTC is a ponzi scheme for morons that doesn't really work as cash, eth is a hobby security but has equal potential to break or go to $1million.

That leave BCH and XMR, the only two cryptocurrencies that are not obvious scams.

[earnesti]

I pay quite a lot of stuff with BTC, either onchain or lightning network. I don't see BCH or XMR accepted nearly as much.

[zkid18]

Yeah, but most people opt for exchanges and VC-backed wallets instead of dealing with custody. The reality has become even more regulated than banks. I've lost access to my Coinbase account, which I used to facilitate some fiat/crypto transactions, simply because of my nationality (I'm Russian but have been living outside of Russia for a decade). It was right after the 22/02 and the massive sanctions.

I wouldn't say fintech or neobanks are very trustworthy. Wise, a fintech platform, blocked my company's account for four weeks for "further investigation" right after the war as well. This caused me to miss bill payments.

I think the only way to mitigate the risk of a bank taking over your funds is to not store all your money in one account. Now, I have over 20 different accounts.

[toss1]

You're on the right track, but cryptocurrency has unfortunately shown repeatedly that it is not the solution (nevermind the ubiquitous fraud, scammers, but nearly 2 decades in, there is no good easy-to-use and secure system, the UX sucks).

It does appear necessary to spread your risk across multiple unrelated financial institutions. Make multiple bank & ccard accounts, and do not link them. Far less convenient, but should improve your safety.

[robertlagrant]

> There is a solution - not sure if everyone's ready to hear it yet: Decentralized finance

Carrying some emergency cash is also a solution for this sort of thing.

[bryanrasmussen]

right but how much emergency cash is needed? He had a transfer of 6000 plus whatever else? Should one have 6000 in emergency cash available? Seems excessive.

Anyway lots of countries seem to think they are soon going cashless, so good luck with that.

[trompetenaccoun]

Actually withdrawing too much cash was one of the reasons cited in the article for banks closing down people's accounts ;)

[_heimdall]

Going off of this article at least, it can take a few weeks for a bank to either reopen your account or send you the balance. Having around a month's worth of emergency cash would make sense to be able to handle an account closure like this.

[phil21]

I am a firm believer of having 10% of ones liquid net worth in cash or equivalent not gatekept by anyone but myself.

This is from extremely hard won personal experience.

Yes, it's a lot of cash. I don't mean keep it all under your mattress.

Edit: A month of your total living expenses including mortgage/rent is what I would deem as both reasonable, and an absolute bare minimum. Not having this on hand would make me feel extremely uncomfortable as you are living at the pleasure and whims of others.

[gentleman11]

One day, pirates learned they could get better interest on their treasure by putting it into banks than they could by burying it. But many had forgotten where they buried it and were not able to take part in this new world

[phil21]

I suppose the smart pirate would diversify their portfolio. Keeping it all the bank doesn't sound super smart for a pirate who might be unmasked and assets seized.

Certainly no form of wealth storage is without risks!

[fsflover]

It wouldn't solve the OP's problem.

[ta1243]

$200 emergency cash would have allowed him to fill up with gas, and pay for a motel or wherever he was going over the weekend.

Having multiple cards would too (I have a debit card and two credit cards, kept at home, but I don't want to be stuck with no money if my wallet/phone gets stolen)

I have no idea why a university which had received multiple on time payments would suddenly drop someone off the role for paying a few days late (especially with a reasonable excuse like "my bank put my account on hold")

[ArabicBaklava]

Not to deviate with the original issue, which is banks suddenly freezing funds, with no warning.

The $200 would've helped guarantee food and gas, it wouldn't cover shelter, i was studying in California, the cheapest hotel was $130~ a night. I also tried explaining the situation to the university, but unfortunately you are considered a current student only if you paid your tuition.

There were also programs to help students in crisis (provide them with place to stay, food) but its only available to students who paid the tuition.

PS: As of that situation happening, now i have 6+ accounts with different banks, emergency cash, I do not want it ever happening to me again.

[jstarfish]

> I have a debit card and two credit cards, kept at home, but I don't want to be stuck with no money if my wallet/phone gets stolen

Ha. The same problem applies there too, and burned me at some random gas station in the middle of nowhere on the way to Spokane--8pm at night on a Friday--the bank raised a fraud alert on my credit card. The customer service agent said I had to talk to Fraud, who wasn't in until Monday. There were no hotels (not that I could pay for one of those either), nor any other customers to beg for change. We had to buy gas with change found in the seats and a miraculous disbursement of pity from the attendant. (This was an account with some no-name issuer, possibly Credit One. Only American Express and Capital One have ever been reliable for me in travel.)

Separate incident before that related to poor credit on my part at the time, but the issuer reduced my credit limit on a credit account without my knowledge.

You can't trust anything in the "cloud" will be there when you need it. Rather than hoarding gold or traveling with large amounts of cash (welcome back, literal highway robbery) the meddling to protect themselves needs to stop. Every bank is becoming PayPal.

[aaron_m04]

Can you even stay at a motel with only cash these days?

[BobaFloutist]

You definitely need at least an ID, and often times they'll want a bigger cash deposit than you might expect, and even then they discourage it/many hotels do not allow it.

[manojlds]

Yeah the story doesn't check out.

[ArabicBaklava]

Well, sadly you are not the only one that did not believe me. My family, the closest to me, said the same thing, and it took a while to convince them i was not in california to play.. that is after coming back empty handed / degreeless.

Please refer to the FAQ from the university i was studying at. #10 to be exact https://sbs.fullerton.edu/about/FAQs.php I was late to pay the tuiton, only because the bank account was suddenly frozen, on a long weekend.

This is the program i was talking about, you can review the eligibility, which states that the student must be currently enrolled. https://www.fullerton.edu/basic-needs/

[ta1243]

How long did the bank hold on to your money?

To me that says "talk to us before the deadline if you've got problems paying". What did they say when you said your bank was having problems?

[pc86]

Sure it wouldn't solve this specific problem faced by this specific person at this specific time. But I'm willing to venture that a lot of people who had similar problems would have been in a much better spot had they had a bundle of cash in a sock drawer or something.

But cash can't be used for lots of things, even though legally it needs to be accepted anywhere. I can't imagine it would be easy to pay your $6,000 school tuition with a stack of $20 bills. You might be able to get a hotel room if you paid a hefty deposit on top of what the room actually cost, but you'd be just as likely to run into some 20 year old desk agent who can't be bothered to find the form for that, if it even exists.

[j-a-a-p]

We simply should not blindly rely on services like banks. You can invent any other new system, but you will never avoid this to happen. The lesson to be learned here is never let yourself get cornered.

[janandonly]

Having cash counts as “decentralized” finance just as well, no?

[rbanffy]

> There is a solution - not sure if everyone's ready to hear it yet: Decentralized finance.

Another good option is to have checking accounts in more than one bank. Whatever triggers bank A to close your account is unlikely to also trigger the same action by bank B. It requires more funds, but you decentralise your finances within the classic financial system.

If something triggers a close of your accounts on multiple banks at the same time, odds are you have much worse problems than access to liquidity.

[TwoHeadedBeast]

Really just a credit card with a different institution is enough to see you through something like this.

[bombcar]

The problem is the government deputized the banks, yet the banks are not held to the same standard that government agents are.

Until that’s fixed, this will only get worse.

[mpalczewski]

A big centralized government bank is not somehow going to be magically better than multiple commercial banks. At best it would be equally bad but more likely it will be worse than the dmv and irs put together. Going to the bank will be like doing your taxes. Maybe it would be so bad that it would solve this problem because people would have cash.

[bombcar]

At least if the DMV or the IRS goes insane, you can take them to real court.

A government bank of last resort is probably something we need.

[BobaFloutist]

Yeah the point of government services like a central bank or a public healthcare option or what have you is that they provide a floor of "this is the worst service/bargain you can possibly get", and then the private sector needs to compete against it (sometimes by dishonestly implying they have a better product when their product is worse, but that's its own can of worms).

For basic necessities to modern life, there needs to be a state provided minimum quantity of access, so that you can't be screwed over by corporations just deciding you aren't profitable enough, or cornering the market and price gouging, etc.

[MrDrMcCoy]

I think the state ought to fund such minimum services, but should under no circumstances be permitted to provide them directly. Quality has a hard time competing with free, especially for the poor. If you can only afford the government free solution and they wrong you, your options for seeking redress will be much more limited than if the government gave you a voucher for a privately provided service.

[QuantumGood]

It's not the bank you need to worry about in DeFi , e.g. https://web3isgoinggreat.com/

[trompetenaccoun]

Much of "Web3" is either a scam or vaporware, that's not really disputed even by cryptocurrency proponents. There also isn't good regulation in most countries currently, in the US for example regulators are dragging their feet, so it's a 'Wild West' type situation like the early internet.

The point is more about banking specifically though, and about taking back control. Grandpa should obviously not swap his life savings for BuzzwordCoin, it's not ready for him. But for someone tech literate like I presume the other user is, holding some emergency funds in a way they have full control could have saved them. Hopefully there will be more integration with the established financial system and easier and safer ways people can move in and out of self custody.