What was your crypto 'Aha!' moment?

A couple of years ago, I was living and working abroad and the time had come for me to return back to my home country. Before leaving I wanted to transfer the money I'd saved while working there to my home country bank. When I went to the bank to do this, they told me that I would need my work permit to be able to transfer the money (they had already made copies of my work permit and passport when I initially opened the bank account, as that was a requirement). But because I had already left this job 6 months previously and had been staying in the country as a tourist, my work permit had expired and when I told them this they informed me I would be unable to transfer my money out of the country to my home bank.Fortunately I was already signed up to a crypto exchange in this country, so after leaving the bank I went back to my apartment, logged into the  exchange and put all of my money from my bank (we're not talking huge amounts here, but it was a significant amount for me) into Bitcoin, so I finally had complete control of my money again.Now I know this isn't as extreme a situation as those people living under corrupt governments who may face the risk of having their bank accounts unjustly frozen, or those living in a country which has experienced hyperinflation. Perhaps there were ways I could have gotten this resolved. But for me this was the first time that I really understood the true value of the cryptocurrency I had already been holding for a little over a year. Previously, it had been no more than an investment. But now, for the first time I saw first-hand that the money in my bank wasn't really 'my' money. It was the bank's money. They had control over what I could do with it, not me. I finally got what people here meant when they stressed the significance of being your own bank.So, whether you're living in a financially unstable country, or you're simply concerned about the amount of money printing going on, what was your crypto 'Aha!' moment that made you really appreciate just how necessary cryptocurrencies are?

Submitted November 03, 2020 at 07:27PM