A lack of banking access was one of the reasons the sex worker who goes by @btcsexworkers is so bullish about bitcoin. It’s been several years since she spent 48 days in a Los Angeles County jail because her ex-husband sold a joint, which she had given him, to an undercover cop. Yet she still has banking issues related to that incident.

“My bank recently limited my transactions because I was assessed as ‘high risk,’” she said. “Bitcoin is helpful because they can’t just go in and take your money. Sometimes they’ll go into the inmate's bank accounts and decide this money is mine and you can’t do anything when you’re in custody, because they charge you all these fines for basic necessities when you’re in custody, like soap.”

When he got out in 2014, Rhedrick struggled to get decently-paid work. He cobbled together manual labor gigs, yet was barely able to make rent.

“I did a lot of reading and studying in prison. The only way to go up is to go through it,” Rhedrick said. “When I first got out I was living from month to month, so I couldn’t afford a full bitcoin. But I knew getting bitcoin knowledge was going to be valuable.”

Luckily, bitcoin enabled him to be his own bank as he started a teaching and consulting business, then he eventually wrote and published his own memoir.

“My main income today is my business, selling my courses and my book,” Rhedrick said, adding that he’s sold hundreds of books since he published the memoir in 2021. “If you have 600,000 people coming out of prison every year, they need to get employed or start their own businesses. If the world isn’t going to hire you, bitcoin offers opportunities for you to work.”