Topic: Anyone have a simple explanation of Bitcoin even your Grandma would understand? (Read 3584 times)
December 15, 2013, 02:02:11 AM
That is the best write up ever. Of course, it's from April 2012 when bitcoins were less than $5 each.
December 10, 2013, 01:40:32 PM
While it's more than 200 words, I think this article is by far the best simple explanation for beginners.
Maybe you can condense it down further to its most salient points and share with grandma.
http://evoorhees.blogspot.com/2012/04/bitcoin-libertarian-introduction.html
Maybe you can condense it down further to its most salient points and share with grandma.
http://evoorhees.blogspot.com/2012/04/bitcoin-libertarian-introduction.html
December 10, 2013, 01:25:19 PM
In my words:
Bitcoin is a world wide currency which exists only on the internet. The coins are created by the users with special rules which limit the rate of creation. Bitcoins can be traded for psychical products or services by anyone in the world with almost not restrictions.
Bitcoin is a world wide currency which exists only on the internet. The coins are created by the users with special rules which limit the rate of creation. Bitcoins can be traded for psychical products or services by anyone in the world with almost not restrictions.
December 10, 2013, 12:39:38 PM
Grandma - "Bitcoin is the first decentralized, limited supply money with a publicly verifiable accounting system."
The Problem
For the last 5000+ years banks and governments have stolen wealth and power from the people.
How? Unfortunately, whenever you need to save/trade/transfer significant value, you always have to trust a person/bank/organisation/government with some of your money. But because of human greed, once your money/value is in their system they ALWAYS issue more notes/IOU's than they should until they get caught. The FDR gold revaluation, Nixon shock, and the coming bail-ins/fiat collapse as well as most currency & banking crises in human history are the result of this flaw.
The solution
Bitcoin! - "Bitcoin is the first decentralized, limited supply money with a publicly verifiable accounting system."
For the first time in human history you can save/trade/transfer significant value without having to trust that a person/bank/organisation/government is not issuing/spending/promising more money than they should.
The Problem
For the last 5000+ years banks and governments have stolen wealth and power from the people.
How? Unfortunately, whenever you need to save/trade/transfer significant value, you always have to trust a person/bank/organisation/government with some of your money. But because of human greed, once your money/value is in their system they ALWAYS issue more notes/IOU's than they should until they get caught. The FDR gold revaluation, Nixon shock, and the coming bail-ins/fiat collapse as well as most currency & banking crises in human history are the result of this flaw.
The solution
Bitcoin! - "Bitcoin is the first decentralized, limited supply money with a publicly verifiable accounting system."
For the first time in human history you can save/trade/transfer significant value without having to trust that a person/bank/organisation/government is not issuing/spending/promising more money than they should.
December 10, 2013, 10:45:18 AM
Bitcoin is Money Version 4
The evolution/revolution of trading..
Money v1 : Gold Silver
Money v2 : Paper
Money v3 : Plastic giving access to money in bank accounts, all digital money, with a plastic card as a mean of access..
Money v4 : Bitcoin
Normal evolution, it's just the product of the actual technology and knowledge availlable, a better way to trade..
The evolution/revolution of trading..
Money v1 : Gold Silver
Money v2 : Paper
Money v3 : Plastic giving access to money in bank accounts, all digital money, with a plastic card as a mean of access..
Money v4 : Bitcoin
Normal evolution, it's just the product of the actual technology and knowledge availlable, a better way to trade..
December 10, 2013, 01:52:23 AM
A printing press that is made to slow down over time.
December 10, 2013, 01:01:09 AM
"magic internet money"
December 10, 2013, 12:51:53 AM
has anyone ever been able to come up with a <200 words explanation of what bitcoin is, in simple english, without words like "blockchain" and "hash", that would make even your grandma understand what bitcoin is?
I know this is not what you are looking for...
if it is your grandma you really need to convince, you could try this:
Bitcoin is like a foreign currency you need to buy when you go to another country,
except that Bitcoin is not issued by a country, it is generated on the internet.
You can run a software to solve a difficult math problem, and you would be rewarded some Bitcoins.
Or you can sell some your things or help out someone and get paid in Bitcoins.
Some might prefer to buy Bitcoins using dollars at an exchanged, similar to how you buy Euros or Yen at the airport.
You can't buy bread and milk at your local store with Bitcoins yet, but you can order all kinds of stuff on the internet.
Its popularity is growing among many countries and it value is rising steadily.
(and I skipped all the technical stuff, cos granny wouldn't understand any "peer-to-peer ledger nonsense")
December 10, 2013, 12:19:47 AM
It is also programmable so you can create wills and contracts without a bank or a lawyer. Any sized company, even mom and pop shop and can offer an IPO using bitcoins.
December 10, 2013, 12:13:58 AM
It's a peer-to-peer distributed accounting ledger, invented to remove the trust required in the banking system.
Winner so far..
When you describe Bitcoin by focusing on the distributed, public ledger aspect, it becomes much more apparent to people that Bitcoin has real value and isn't just an arbitrary digital token.
December 09, 2013, 10:24:39 PM
Grandma, you know how a penny is the smallest denomination of the US currency, well with bitcoins you can have smaller denominations, heck let me break it down for you og style.
99 pennies make a dollar but bitcoins ain't made up of no pennies, no no no
see in the land of networks we work with octets you see. now in each octet is a 8 numerical placeholders and added together they can make up 255, you still with me granny, no, well damn..alright..
alright, look lets make it even simpler, there was this crazy asian dude who wanted to change the world as we know it
see, he wanted to buy some alpaca socks, but wanted to do it in a crazy new way. he was like hey, would it be cool to have money that no one controlled.
so this little asian dude, being asian he was smart as fuck, so he typed away at his computer eating fried rice and shit seeing the shit in his head like neo in the matrix...neo...you don't know who neo is?...shit, put this on pause, let me get my matrix blu ray collection, we about to get our movie on.
***Disclaimer***
No offense meant, seriously, just did it for a laugh.
99 pennies make a dollar but bitcoins ain't made up of no pennies, no no no
see in the land of networks we work with octets you see. now in each octet is a 8 numerical placeholders and added together they can make up 255, you still with me granny, no, well damn..alright..
alright, look lets make it even simpler, there was this crazy asian dude who wanted to change the world as we know it
see, he wanted to buy some alpaca socks, but wanted to do it in a crazy new way. he was like hey, would it be cool to have money that no one controlled.
so this little asian dude, being asian he was smart as fuck, so he typed away at his computer eating fried rice and shit seeing the shit in his head like neo in the matrix...neo...you don't know who neo is?...shit, put this on pause, let me get my matrix blu ray collection, we about to get our movie on.
***Disclaimer***
No offense meant, seriously, just did it for a laugh.
December 09, 2013, 09:56:03 PM
Grandma,
Bitcoin is like gold.
Except that it is a VERY big complicated numeric word that cannot be imitated.
So, there will only be a certain amount of bitcoins. They wont be able to discover new bitcoins like how they can discover gold deposits.
You can put it in your bag like gold, divide it to small pieces like gold and spend it.
You lose your bitcoins if your wallet gets stolen, just like you would lose your gold if your gold bag was stolen.
You cant send gold over internet, but you can send bitcoins to anyone on internet, instantly.
Bitcoin is like gold.
Except that it is a VERY big complicated numeric word that cannot be imitated.
So, there will only be a certain amount of bitcoins. They wont be able to discover new bitcoins like how they can discover gold deposits.
You can put it in your bag like gold, divide it to small pieces like gold and spend it.
You lose your bitcoins if your wallet gets stolen, just like you would lose your gold if your gold bag was stolen.
You cant send gold over internet, but you can send bitcoins to anyone on internet, instantly.
December 09, 2013, 08:27:15 PM
Bitcoin: Decentralized register of things you own.
In future it could be used for decentralized registering of anything you value, land real estate, good old ownership collection from your state to the cloud :-) For now it is used to register currency owned by your bitcoin address
In future it could be used for decentralized registering of anything you value, land real estate, good old ownership collection from your state to the cloud :-) For now it is used to register currency owned by your bitcoin address
December 09, 2013, 07:41:29 PM
- Hey, grandma, since when do you remember the prices of food and things always going up?
- Oh, son, since always.
- And do you remember, besides how hard grandpa worked all his life, it was always very hard to save the money because everything keeps going up, until today?
- Yes, son. The poor bastard worked really hard.
- That's because since one hundred years ago our government keeps printing new money, when it needs, and the prices goes up, stealing from workers and savers, like grandpa.
- I imagine. Those motherfuckers! (My grandma swears a lot!)
- So, there's this new money that tries to fix that, it's a computer money. Controlled by machines, not people. And, in theory, the prices of things goes down or stays the same in the long haul when you use it.
- Computers?!
- I understand computers, you know that!
- Oh, son, you're really smart. I hope god gives you everything in double for everything you do!
- Thanks, grandma. It more than doubled already.
- Oh, son, since always.
- And do you remember, besides how hard grandpa worked all his life, it was always very hard to save the money because everything keeps going up, until today?
- Yes, son. The poor bastard worked really hard.
- That's because since one hundred years ago our government keeps printing new money, when it needs, and the prices goes up, stealing from workers and savers, like grandpa.
- I imagine. Those motherfuckers! (My grandma swears a lot!)
- So, there's this new money that tries to fix that, it's a computer money. Controlled by machines, not people. And, in theory, the prices of things goes down or stays the same in the long haul when you use it.
- Computers?!
- I understand computers, you know that!
- Oh, son, you're really smart. I hope god gives you everything in double for everything you do!
- Thanks, grandma. It more than doubled already.
This post made my day.
December 09, 2013, 04:00:55 PM
digital gold
December 09, 2013, 11:23:25 AM
i am trying to convince my father that he should buy and hold a few of these and just play but he keeps hearing news about the pump and dump scams and believes that too few people can manipulate the market. Does anyone think that this will be become less of an issue with more people buying up coins to hold?
yes but by that time you might be looking at a price of $1,000,000 per BTC
December 09, 2013, 10:00:10 AM
Nah, but once bitcoin reach 100.000$ then maybe he will think "if only i bought them when they were cheap..."
December 09, 2013, 09:57:11 AM
i am trying to convince my father that he should buy and hold a few of these and just play but he keeps hearing news about the pump and dump scams and believes that too few people can manipulate the market. Does anyone think that this will be become less of an issue with more people buying up coins to hold?
December 09, 2013, 09:48:28 AM
That is pretty much how my subnetting class goes with the game designer students.
December 09, 2013, 09:45:42 AM
The problem with any simple explanation:
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