In February 2014, the Central Bank of Nigeria launched a centralized biometric identification system for the banking industry called Bank Verification Number (BVN). During the exercise, customer data such as fingerprint, photograph, and signature were collected. And I remember the ensuing frenzy that followed when customers were told that their bank accounts would be closed if they failed to verify them within a given period. But this is not peculiar to just Nigeria.
More than 86 million accounts will be closed in Vietnam due to a lack of biometric verification. Similarly, the Bank of Thailand recently froze 3 million bank accounts overnight and capped daily transfers at $1,300 to $5,500.
Now, don’t get me wrong. KYC is necessary in the fight against financial crime, but it can quickly become a tool for restrictive surveillance. Imagine having your bank account blocked because it was flagged for a malicious transaction. Honestly, I don’t have an issue with this. The problem usually lies in all the bureaucracies that come with trying to resolve things.
The bottom line is that governments and financial institutions can monitor, freeze, and control your assets with the click of a button. This is not a distant reality; it is already happening.
What Does it Mean to be Your Own Bank?
For centuries, banks have been the gatekeepers of wealth, but a new movement is empowering individuals to take control of their finances. This isn’t about hoarding cash in a mattress; it’s about leveraging technology and strategic thinking to become your own bank.
Being your own bank (BYOB) means freeing your money from the constraints of a traditional financial institution. Instead of relying solely on a savings account that might yield a meagre interest rate, you can become an active participant in your financial growth. BYOB focuses on maximizing returns, minimizing fees, and gaining direct control over your assets.
Take a minute to ponder on these stats:
According to Bankrate’s Sept. 2025 survey of financial institutions in the US, the average savings account yield was 0.63% APY. The best high-yield savings accounts were paying between 4% and 5% APY.
While global remittance fees have trended downward (dropping from 7.16% to 5.89% since 2019), the average cost is still high, running at around 6% of the amount transferred.
The Cryptocurrency Solution
Cryptocurrency, built on blockchain technology, provides a set of features that directly replicate and, in many ways, improve upon the services of a traditional bank, all without the need for a trusted, fallible, and costly middleman. Some of these features include:
1. Self-Custody
The most significant difference between holding money in a bank and holding cryptocurrency is custody (who is the legal and physical holder of the asset).
When you place your money in a traditional bank, the bank holds your funds as a liability, making you a creditor to the institution. Your money is protected by deposit insurance (like FDIC/FSCS), but it remains vulnerable to bank insolvency or government freeze and seizure.
In contrast, with cryptocurrency held in a non-custodial wallet (such as a hardware wallet), you alone hold the private keys. These keys are the cryptographic proof of ownership. No single entity, bank, or government can freeze or seize these funds. Your security rests entirely on advanced cryptography. Furthermore, while banks limit access with hours, withdrawal limits, and bureaucratic processes, your crypto is accessible 24/7/365 and is permissionless, requiring only your private keys and an internet connection. This direct control is the essence of banklessness and financial autonomy.
2. Cutting out the Middleman
Cryptocurrencies operate on a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) known as a blockchain. Traditional banks are centralized, meaning all power and data reside in one location. This creates a single point of failure that is inefficient, costly, and censorship-prone.
Cryptocurrency networks, however, are decentralized. The ledger of transactions is distributed and maintained across thousands of computers, or nodes, worldwide. The result is a network that offers faster, cheaper, and borderless payments.
When you send crypto on decentralized exchanges, you bypass the entire bureaucratic process of bank reconciliation, compliance checks, and multiple intermediaries. You transact directly with the recipient, peer-to-peer. This makes international transfers practically instant and significantly cheaper, avoiding the high fees and complexities of the traditional SWIFT system, effectively making you your own global payment processor.
3. Programmable Money
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is the ecosystem of financial applications built on public blockchains. This system uses smart contracts, which are self-executing, self-enforcing code, to replace the need for human-run, bureaucratic financial departments.
With DeFi, you can replicate and improve traditional banking services. Instead of using a traditional savings account, you can deposit crypto into lending pools to automatically lend funds to borrowers and earn a high-yield interest, making you your own asset manager.
Instead of going through a loan officer, you can use borrowing platforms to take out a loan, using your crypto as collateral and bypassing credit checks to become your own loan officer. Furthermore, Decentralized Exchanges (DEXs) allow you to swap cryptocurrencies instantly without ever giving up custody to a third party.
Your capital is not locked away; it is actively deployed through code to generate returns and liquidity on a global, 24/7 market.
Conclusion
Remember the stats I asked you to ponder over earlier? While there are higher-yield offers from traditional institutions, you can earn an APY of between 13% to 25% on your cryptocurrency holdings. But I must warn you that digital assets are highly volatile and less regulated than their traditional counterparts. Similarly, the cost of sending funds across the globe is near zero on some blockchains like PIVX.
In a future where financial data is a tool for control, the power of cryptocurrencies is about more than just technology. It is about the ability to opt out of the legacy banking system and stand for financial sovereignty.
Written by Clement Saudu
 | PIVX: Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice |