What struck me the most about this and other interviews: is it really too hard to explain how the blockchain works? I mean these peoples main issue with bitcoin is a lack of understanding how it works. The think some shit like: "it's encrypted". That's just bullshit, nothing's encrypted. Even Trace talks about encryption and how it's "hard for some to do the math and much easier for others" (he means whoever own the private key). Yet there is no encryption happening at all, just signing, which is similar from a math point of view, but totally different from an application point of view.
How about: there's this public ledger that tracks ownership of bitcoins using a concept called transactions. A transaction sends bitcoin from one address to another, to make one you need the private key of the sending address and the public key of the receiving address. New transactions are bundled into a block by the miners, it's like casting them into concrete. That block is then added to the ever-growing blockchain that contains all the transaction history. Then explain PoW, mining incentive and BOOOM, heureka!
It's not that hard, is it? I wouldn't trust bitcoin if I didn't understand this at least rudimentarily like that. It would be a huge leap of faith to buy into this. Now I think what Trace says when he answers the question: "how have you come to trust Bitcoin?", namely: "When I strated using it.". I don't however believe that's the whole truth. I'm pretty sure he looked at how the blockchain and PoW and mining works and that's why he trusts bitcoin.
Bitcoin is really complex to explain and I think not one person can know which is the best way. The most all of us can do however is try each our own methods and see what sticks, eventually one or two ways of explaining it will win out. Is one of those ways how Trace explains Bitcoin? I don't think so but that's ok because it's part of the process of figuring it out.
For example I really really like his explanation on tangibility.
