Most Americans have bank accounts — reliable places to store money that are federally insured, carefully regulated, and generally better than coffee cans full of cash . But some 5 million households don’t have bank accounts. So every two years, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation conducts a survey to find out why. Is it a trust thing? A distance thing? A fees-and-service-charges thing? Last November, for the first time, the FDIC reported the results of a new question it added to the survey: Do you use a cryptocurrency like bitcoin instead of a bank? From the start, the dream for crypto has always been “be your own bank.” I’m being a little simplistic there, but bitcoin, ether, and their digital cousins were supposed to be a smarter flavor of money.
