Bitcoin users are largely rich, white and banked, according to a new FDIC poll of 30,000 households
Crypto boosters have long hailed Bitcoin and other digital tokens as a financial lifeline for the unbanked in America and the rest the world. That potential is reflected in crypto’s current $3 trillion in market value. But according to the associate director of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s division of depositor and consumer protection, Keith Ernst, there are few signs this is happening on the ground.
“That’s just not what people are using it for,” Ernst told Fortune today, at a meeting of the regulator’s Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion.
Of the 30,000 households the FDIC polled for its newly released FDIC National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households, unbanked households actually use…