[mothballed]

They are definitely getting fucked by not getting the documentation they are owed, no two ways around it.

However I don't see the binary extremes you see.

The undocumented people can pool together and start their own schools. They can start their own soccer league. They can hire a pooled doctor. They can put some amount of stored value into a crypto account, which might be better in some cases than hiding gold in a hole or something, because they aren't going to be able to access banking.

And yes, that situation sucks, and it's wrong, and it encourages apartheid-light, and is not an acceptable solution. But in the meanwhile, it would be better for them than nothing and it is something they might have the agency to do.

[monknomo]

I think what you are describing is incredibly optimistic and unlikely, not to mention inefficient.

[mothballed]

The counter there is that it takes a lot of optimism to be more optimistic than the ANC, an incredibly amount of inefficiency to be more inefficient than the South Africa government, and not much luck to get higher likelihood than sitting around waiting for some bureaucrat to give you birth certificate this year.

[Breza]

Why not just use cash at that point? Crypto doesn't make it any easier to create your own social institutions. It just adds volatility, complexity, and risk.