Topic: Cryptocurrency does not offer equal opportunity to the visually impaired. - page 2. (Read 354 times)

It is sad to think OP that there are such situations. Here among us, there are visually impaired people who are helped by government agencies to get a job. They have their organization of massage therapists. I noticed someone when my mother once took me with her when she availed of their service, that one of them, despite his disability, is a fan of technology, and is the geek type. I saw that he was using a smartphone even though he was completely blind, I just didn't know what to call the software he was using, maybe a screen reader or text-to-speech tool and I admired him. But I just don't know if he also knows about cryptocurrency, it's been a long time, a few years ago.

So today, I searched the internet to see how there are people like this who are interested in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. I read this story of Michael Staffen, he also had a visual impairment and he was one of the supporters of Bitcoin in 2014, Bitcoin-QT was the wallet he used then and he said he couldn't do anything because he only used a screenreader, he couldn't even access like send/receive a coin, fortunately, he has a sister who is also a Bitcoin enthusiast who helps him. It was also mentioned that he was hired by Coindesk to be a beta tester who will make the wallet usable for those like him, the wallet referred to here is MultiBit, but as far as I know, it was deprecated in 2017. I also found nothing news about him.

Bitcoin 'Needs to be More Accessible for the Visually Impaired'

They can use the abundance of screen readers and other accessibility software that is available on all major operating systems. Generally, if these see any text, or input controls anywhere, the screen readers pronounce it out loud (with the exception of passwords, but I'd assume that people already invented a method to deal with that - at least for Windows passwords at first. Perhaps a braille keyboard for english letters). I don't see the problem here?

isn't life itself hard if one is visually impaired, what crypto got to do with anything?

Back in the year 2017, there is an individual who created a specialized open source bitcoin wallet that is designed for visually impaired bitcoin communities^[1]. And it uses some sort of braille display and an audio for the person to control the device. However, the project itself appears to be dead and its website is no longer accessible.

While the developer seems to abandoned the project, the developer nonetheless produced a braille version^[2] of the bitcoin whitepaper.  

[1] https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/icywallet-offers-cold-storage-bitcoin-wallet-visually-impaired
[2] https://github.com/neatnik/braille-bitcoin-whitepaper

I have absolutely no clue what was written here but I think you guys can get some useful information from their archived github
- https://web.archive.org/web/20201113132658/https://github.com/neatnik/icywallet

This, and like 99999 other internet services lol. It was described as if bitcoin/crypto is the only sort of "service" that the visually impaired can't easily use.

As for the solution: get a trusted family member to help you, just like how the visually impaired need a helping hand with a lot of other stuff.

Interesting idea. By the way is there any platform that have tried this out or has been in the alpha stage? I think OPs concern is really worth looking at if we think about it. There are some visually impaired whose interest on bitcoin are probably in demand but the lack of proper platform or tools are missing.

I suppose you can say the same thing about computers and digital banking system since in terms of usage there is no difference between bitcoin and them.
It shouldn't be that difficult to add voice commands to a bitcoin wallet either. All it takes is to add some open source packages for that to a popular wallet like Electrum so that it can convert everything they need to do (setting amount, fee, etc.) to voice and also respond to voice commands.

I'm confused as to why this is a topic the Internet and computers are extremely accessible and are built for that.

Some of the cryptospace will probably be inaccessible to people with different disabilities but most of it won't be - and for developers it might be as simple as seeing if they can download and use text to speech on their app.

Most exchanges are built of websites which are very easy to adapt and feed into other programs to be viewed more optimally for the user (there are on screen magnifiers on most devices and there are also usbc/USB braille readers that can be used for adapting information - I've no idea how blind people actually use these to navigate round computers but I've watched some do it with great proficiency and at very fast paces).

There are typewriter style machines that could also handle writing down mnemonics for producing paper backups (the bumps should stay if the paper is protected and even if they don't, they just become holes - they don't fade like ink does).

For people that are not visually impaired, noncustodial wallet should be used.

I do not know other way to go than the visually impaired person to use his bank to buy bitcoin, you can do that in some Western countries, but some countries do not allow bank to get involved in crypto.

I will not advice noncustodial wallet because the person still trust someone to help him keep the coins, noncustododial should be trustless and not suitable for visually impaired person.

I will not suggest exchanges, regardless of anything, exchanges should be avoided.

We usually prioritize how keeping our keys safe and personal is crucial for the safety of our coins, but how can the visually impaired keep safe something that they cannot see. The entire thought of it is very disheartening that it may even be discouraging for any of such a person if after managing to agree to be a part of crypto, they now hear that they may never be able to secure their crypto. What can we suggest to these individuals (the visually impaired) who have an interest in bitcoins and crypto so that they don't loose interest?  Have you met any visually impaired individual in crypto, how do they manage to go about with it?