Topic: Is it a waste of time mentioning Bitcoin to friends and family? - page 5. (Read 14644 times)

Personally, I dont think it's a good time for non-tech people to be introduced. Most if not all mining has gone the way of asics and gpu's, meaning the only feasible option for obtaining bitcoin is too buy straight up. For some this buy-in wall can be daunting.

As for altcoins, (although not in the scope of the OP, also worth mentioning here) there is far too much instability in pricing (and devs) too be a good long term buy, and as for mining, again asic and gpu.

No matter how you choose to enter the bitcoin world, there seems to be quite a stiff buy-in now, with a constant arms-race for miners. Also, for those gullible (read GREEDY lol) few like myself, there's soooooo many opportunities to be scammed out of you hard earned coin/dollars. (eg. XPY, GARZA, Coin Doublers, etc.)

IMHO the nicest and safest thing to do (for your friends and family), is to keep them far away from the BTC/ALT world for now.

Signed,
a perpetual bag-holder

This is pretty much it, most people becoming interested when there is a general increase in price, not the perfect kind of attention, but it's still positive.

Today was a good time when i explained a bit about bitcoin to my relatives, because the price is increasing they are interesting to invest a little bit so i think it's not a waste of time.

we are still having trouble, to use bitcoin directly, buy goods with bitcoin is still very taboo, this makes people less interested

Yeah the thing is people that would benefit the most from Bitcoin aren't the average joe living in a suburban first world place because most people don't need any changes in how the way money works. But people that are entrepeneurs and want to start receiving payments easy and fast, or people that are overseas sending money, or people in places like Argentina.. but those aren't the people most of us have for friends. I think the importnace of Bitcoin will not be clear to most people in developed world until fiat starts to collapse real bad.

Don't know if it's a waste of time or not.  My parents both know about bitcoin but neither of them own any or want to own any, and they knew of it from news reports.  I have mentioned it to some friends, but I don't pester them to buy or otherwise proselytize the benefits of owning bitcoin.  Why would anyone bother doing that?  Most of the time I can't figure out any true advantages to owning myself other than capital gains.

I will briefly tell you about my experience in encouraging friends and relatives to use Bitcoins. Till now, I might have talked to some 50 people regarding Bitcoins. 5 or 6 took it seriously, and started collecting them. But later, some of them got bored, and dumped their coins and moved on. One or two are sill holding BTCs.

This is indeed one of the main reasons the average person is not willing to get on Bitcoin, they think it's a waste of time if they have to convert to their local currency (and of money since there are fees to do so). Like some pointed, being paid in BTC is a crucial step in everyday type of usage.

There is a problem we encounter when talking with people about Bitcoin, it's that currency still need to be converted into fiat in order to use it and make deals in the most famous marketplaces

have you explained them everything about trading or also how the people can benefit from using bitcoin instead of paypal, mastercard and so on? and that it also allows them to use it as a store of value and that they in fact own their money?

I've managed to get two of my friends to buy bitcoins. They get it that in the long run they'll benefit from it. However Most people are a bit skeptical about bitcoins. I think the main reason for them to be skeptical is, that they haven't had much contact with bitcoins yet. However time will fix those people. When there's a lot of people speaking about something that is too good to be true. they'll start believing it.

I have to say that I tried many times to explain bitcoin to my friends but on the i just gave up, it's useless.
They are either afraid of it, don't care at all, don't listen or they are very skeptic.
So, yes, right now it's really waste of my time and energy to mention bitcoin to friends and family.
When bitcoin finally become mainstream and its price rise again, than I will show them

You are approaching from the wrong angle. First you have to spike the interest of the person. This is not done by definitions of what exists. Instead tell they can earn a lot of money by using bitcoin. Surely "You can make a lot of bucks" is a more motivational phrase than "Bitcoin is.."

Bitcoin can be popular for computer geeks, they always have interest to computer things, like software and so on - so they can be the first BTC newbie 

Even though how hard you try to introduce the pros, people would still find a con in regards to using bitcoins. Best thing to do is to educate yourself first before trying to educate others about bitcoin so that if in case they have questions, you can easily answer it.

True true. But maybe preach it from an angle where it is used for online transactions. I mean bitcoin cannot be directly compared to cash in real life. Bitcoin is made for the online world whereas online payment services such as paypal or credit card are real cash adapted for the online world. I feel that usage in the real world is not as important for bitcoin, usage of bitcoin for such services and goods makes more sense. So preach it from an angle that it useful in online payments perhaps?

How many people have you told, what all of them are interested and join in bitcoin now? interesting to see

here is example questions and answers when talking to others

 you: bitcoin is a new currency that works without banks and is super fast at making transactions
them: so i can buy a roll of toilet paper faster than debit card
 you:: yes
them: so i can walk down to 7seven eleven right now and buy toilet roll with bitcoin
 you: no... because you first need to convert it to a debit card at coinbase or xapo
them: oh.. so its bank money!! 7eleven receives from coinbase/xapo. making the transaction at 7eleven the same speed of debit card.. because it is a debit card
 you: yes.
them: ok so bitcoin still needs banks to help everyday people use it..
them: so say i had $10 of bitcoin and i wanted to put it onto the debit card to then buy some toilet roll. how do it do this?
 you: well you log into coinbase website. and swap it they then put $9.98 onto the debit card
them: ok ill ignore the 2cent loss, but im not confident using the internet is it simple to set up and transfer my life savings
 you: well you need to go online and scan your personal documents and wait for them to set up a account with coinbase
them: so i have to trust a website that has no bank branches to visit. and to use it at the shop i need to convert it to a debit card.. like i get from a bank
them: so ok its not useful in shops, and not easy to set up use... so how can i benefit from it apart from what you already said?
 you: well it's good for investing.
them: so if i put my life savings into bitcoin and got some third party company to manage it.. like retirement funds do, what guarantee's are there. what regulations are there
 you: um. none. but its safer to just hold it privately, rather than day trade via third party services.
them: so its like holding gold under the bed waiting for the gold price to rise instead of day trading gold contracts.
 you: yes
them: so the price is based the true value of bitcoins production of the 15million in circulation with a small bit of speculation like 10% based on supply and demand changes.
 you: um no. only about 50,000 of them are traded each day and its based on the average of them being traded where speculation can be upto 400% at times
them: so your telling me i cant use it directly in many shops, its not safe to day trade.. so basically your telling me its more of an volatile asset to hold rather then usable currency
 you: yes
them: so why didnt you just say it was an speculative volatile asset

so guys..
until it can be used to buy every day things. where confirmation times don't delay retailers direct acceptance or needing conversion to fiat to cope with capacity.
until there are secure and trusted services
until getting/converting/holding/using bitcoin is very layman friendly..

.. its not ready for mainstream.

and if you are going to mention it to people dont shout the uptopian dream. dont give the long conversation. just know the person you are talking to and use a real WORKING example that WILL benefit them. no speculating, no over promising, no vague info, no false info.. just tell them one thing that WILL improve their life.

Yes there is a time when i tell them about bitcoins they will  just laugh at me and said that I am crazy however when I tell them about Bitcoins with a proof (real cash) they just become shock and started to become curious about it , I guess it is worth mentioning if you included some proofs when you tell them so they will not laugh at you hence they will look at you amazed and brilliant.

Most still view it as a giant ponzi scam ):