It does not help the poorest of the poor though, the only way you could have an access to bitcoin is by having a device that has an access on the Internet. I would say, that it is more like bitcoin help those who have the access to the Internet. The only way that bitcoin can help the poor is by the mercy of the community surrounding it, if they are willing to give back to the society then bitcoin indeed does help the poor.
If the poorest can access the internet with the device, they can use bitcoin for their purpose. The device itself does not need to be expensive, but it supports to install the wallet to store bitcoin. With the internet grows in many places, that can give more chances to every people to install the wallet and use bitcoin for their benefit. But we should wait until bitcoin can grow the mass adoption among all people in all countries.
It is a little difficult for poor people to trade bitcoin, in terms of capital there is a large percentage that poor people prioritize their daily needs. there is a possibility that bitcoin helps poor people in ways that do not use capital, such as doing a task (airdrop) it does not require a lot of capital, because in my country currently bitcoin is starting to be known, for middle to middle people they start with a free to earn bitcoin.
They can trade bitcoin or hold bitcoin because when they have bitcoin, that will depend on their reason to have that bitcoin. But if they want to increase their bitcoin amount, trading will be the way for them to try. If they can have skills and can analyze better, they will have a chance to make a profit, and they can sell their bitcoin to have fiat money to buy their daily needs.
Doing airdrop will be the other way for them to have ethereum or bitcoin, which can help them make money. All in all, cryptocurrency can give them more chance to make money.