Topic: How could I explain easily to someone that know nothing about Bitcoin what it is ? - page 2. (Read 1614 times)

1. fees are 4.2cents(or more), with a 10 minute (atleast) confirmation.. the recipient is not allowed to spend funds before that as its not settled..
talking about unconfirmed transactions is much like saying it takes 0.1 seconds to hand someone a duff cheque that wont clear.. or takes 10 minutes-1 hour to clear.. and if you want to do a free transaction expect to wait over an hour in many cases..
so atleast be honest to people

2. agreed

3. its about as anonymous as cash. eg if the person receiving it knows your name/face then its less anonymous, so dont publish secret addresses publicly on forums if you want complete anonymity

4. your 'private holdings' cant be limited/frozen, much like having csh under your mattress.. as saying account, people naively beleive that coinbase/mtgox or other account services cant freeze you out

5. as long as you keep control and not hand it to third party services to manage for you.

its best to not paint a pretty picture of the dream, but give people thee fine details of the reality..

Bitcoin is nothing like stocks. It's really really far away.

Just tell them it's stocks. Very simple.

Lol, it's nothing like Paypal. I don't understand many here still spreading information like this. Bitcoin is very complex to explain and to use for the common person. That's why there are so few women using it and I'm not saying that in a bad way, WAF is crucial for many products and services. Consider authorization keys, wallets, addresses as long as lines of code, brain passwords, decimals, dear god...and for what?

I'm thinking this not from our point of view, we understand the potential of it, but it's far for being something that will be massively adopted, just like the internet was in the 90s. That doesn't mean it doesn't have value or it's not a huge innovative idea.

I think theres no easy way when introducing bitcoin to someone. But telling them you can earn it using you mobile phone and you can buy some stuff in the internet or convert it into fiat would make him/her having an interest on it.

weusecoins.com has very informative & simple explanation videos about bitcoin. You may refer to these videos. (There're  translations & subtitles for most languages).

I've never thought about the email. I think this is a good idea. Is the "magic internet money" a bit too big ? I think that the average people, if you say them that it is not backed by any trusted financial organisation, will have fear for Bitcoin. Even if it quite oppressive, a bank guaranties that your money is "safe" and won't lose all his value of the Chinese government decide to block it in, not even in his country, but in China, a far country that has nothing to do with them for many.

Just say you can send it around the world like email.But instead of information you are sending magic internet money that can not be copied and doesn't need the participation of a bank. This way most people got a clue what Bitcoin is.

When explaining bitcoin to a new user, having using this method most likely won't work, just because the mind of a average human being doesn't think about that. It's a quite hard topic for anyone not interested in this subject to talk about. I've tried using this method, but I see, that their mind wonders off mid conversation, most likely because it's too much for them to process. I love to use simple terms, like it's a currency like euro or dollar, only thing is that it's scarce, with a limited supply. Also saying that it's already 420 times stronger than a dollar to make a point.

However most people don't like to talk about money. It's a really difficult topic for them to pick up for some reason so using the most simple terms where possible helps a lot.

Most important is that you use easy language. Then most people are likely to understand what you are talking about. Just explain them the basic things when they don't know much about tech. If they have some experience you can possibly go even further by going a bit more in depth.

First is good to educate how fiat debt based fractional currency works - thats the toughtest part.

After this, Bitcoin really works the way your friend actually mistakelly thought fiat currency works - what a paradox your friend intuitively can understand how Bitcoin works (all satoshis can be used anytime, like real units of something), while so little understands how fiat really works (everytime bank make loan new money is created out of nothing and destroyed when repaying - inflation comes from the interest btw, and all units (dollars) cannot be used anytime because fiat works in fraction reserve - if you attempt to request withrawing all deposits from a bank (or even half of all deposits) - aka bank run, banks have to close and refuse doing wires as well - there dont exists all units (dollars) under fractional reserve)...

So the decision is using something real like gold and Bitcoins or fraction based fiat shit (literally).

talk about the advantages, mainly, and you can say to them that those money are always your, like the one that you have under your pillow, but with the advantage that the value does appreciate in the future, not depreciate

Show them the youtube video explaining it. Its explained in its simplest terms so it can't be beat.

If they have a smartphone and know how to use it it's easier. Just tell them that it's an alternate currency that only exists inside the phone (or the computer) and that you can't physically feel, but still it's there, it has value and it can buy stuff.
Tell them it's stored on a digital wallet inside the phone and that they have to protect it with a strong password.
Also, don't forget to insist on how innovative it is, how it can change the future and increase in value over time ;-)

maybe you can use my way in explaining bitcoin to people who did not know about bitcoin, I told them, "bitcoin it as your telephone token (top up), can be bought and sold, but also as the dollar, the price is going up and down"; D

Bitcoin has nothing in common with Paypal. Who told this to you have no idea what bitcoin is. As for your question in which way you can explain what is bitcoin to someone who not only don't know it at all but even computer my answer it would be. Cannot explain. First he/she must know the computer. So your work will be more hard because first must explain to him/her what is the computer, must learn to it what is computer, then must learn what is internet. then try to use all the above. After the normal use of all above you can tell that bitcoin is a software which play the role of money in internet. As a money with it can be bought everything from them who sell something and accept it. After that, show it a bitcoin wallet (maybe even help to create one), show how to use various option within it (send the bitcoin firstly), show where can be bought bitcoin or how can earn some of those and at last show to him/her that exist an infinity of knowledge in internet about totally everything regarding bitcoin. It will be enough to do a simple search using the word bitcoin and will have only the difficulty to choice. Everyone of us has learned in this way about bitcoin. Maybe you can name Wikipedia as a good source to not confuse much him/her and that is enough you can do. The other remain to him/her.

tell him first it's real money then he will listen to the rest like it's digital currency easy to earn can be used in different things and it will be more known as a payment systeme in the next years

Just say this "it's a digital currency that you can use anytime & anywhere", that is usually what I say to someone whenever they ask about Bitcoin.

oops i forgot something, "you dont need to upload your identity like paypal did" this is very good for those who want annonimity (pseudo actually) for their  transaction.
that's the point what i told to my friends who used paypal

If you say it is like PayPal, they don't under and why it's that good. Also, if they don't like PayPal they won't go to Bitcoin since I told them it was the same.




A good point I think. Thank you I'll use it.




Thank you, this was exactly what I was looking for. I think this way I'll be able to convert some people to Bitcoin !




I usually start by saying that's the simplest way, but I usually get : "It is so simple, why can't I buy with my PayPal, why not so many stores accept it ?" as a reply, so I'll use the arguments from the last post.