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“Dearest Daughter, you’re bankless. Your life’s savings are stored on the Bitcoin blockchain.”
Will Schoellkopf
In a couple months, my daughter will be born, but as a Bitcoiner father, I’m not watching tutorials on how to change diapers. Instead, I’m thinking about her future.
When I was thirteen, my mom took me to our local bank branch to open up a savings account. It was a memorable experience filled with life lessons. In particular, I learned how important it is to build up savings, so that one day I could spend them on something I really wanted or needed. It’s a fundamental principle that some people are still learning.
However, thirteen years from now, in 2035, I can’t imagine that I’ll be doing the same thing with my daughter! Certainly the concept of a piggy bank won’t even exist by then. Will the U.S. Government have finally followed the example of its peers and stopped producing the penny? Will the US stop printing all paper money entirely?
Nowadays, I’m finding more and more restaurants in California with signs on the windows saying they’re “cashless” and will only accept payment via a debit/credit card or an app! In the era of COVID-19, even the happiest place on Earth has made paying with cash the option of last resort. So much for the Mouse teaching my daughter through paper dollars how he gets his cheese.
Modern cold storage hardware wallet solutions have made safely securing your satoshis much more accessible to the average user. I look forward to what the creative minds at these companies will come up with to make self-sovereignty so easy even a child can do it!
As a little kid, walking around with a $20 bill was an anxious experience. At that time, it felt like a lot of money, and if I dropped it and it blew away in the wind, it could be gone forever. But when my daughter saves her satoshis on the blockchain, she won’t have to worry as much about losing her encrypted signing device. (As her father, it will be a costly thing for me to replace, but I will bear it.) She can walk down the street with confidence knowing that the value of her allowance is cryptographically secure.
Today, we are seeing more and more services available for people to take their fiat salary and be paid in bitcoin. No bank account required! The service provides the direct deposit routing and account number details for your employer, and you’re good! They don’t need to know that you’re instantly converting your paycheck into the hardest asset ever created by humanity.
Lucky for you daughter, your piggy bank is in the clouds.
This is an opinion editorial by Will Schoellkopf, author of “The Bitcoin Dog”, host of “It’s So Early!”, and a soon-to-be father.
Really love this piece! Well done, Will