> Actually, I read a book a while back by someone who was in Argentina when it crashed. He said people were using small lengths of gold chain as currency.

Well sure, when you don't have access to a reliable consumer banking system everyone, including the poor, falls back on gold (or cigarettes or the like). Do you have evidence that the crash hit the rich harder than it hit the poor? Because my expectation would be just the opposite.

> Your life savings don't go in your phone wallet, they go in a paper wallet that you keep in a safe deposit box.

Well, I guess you can make it as safe as cash by giving it all the inconvenience of cash. I doubt people are going to switch to a payment mechanism that's less convenient than today's credit cards though.

> Enforcing lending regulations is easy: don't follow the regulations, don't expect any help from the state if the borrower decides not to pay you back.

Which just means those lenders adopt, uh, extra-legal measures.

Being able to track the movement of money, reverse fraudulent transactions, freeze accounts and so on is a major weapon against organized crime. Bitcoin makes it easier to run such crime, and it's the poor who will suffer the most as a result.