Topic: Spreading bitcoin awareness; Your personal security matters first (Read 371 times)

Op you made a good point in this context, no matter how passionate we become about bitcoin and wishes to extend the knowledge to people within our spheres we should take on serious background check about the character of those we wish to preach bitcoin to, cause the idea to many of these ignorant people is that immediately they hear you talk about bitcoin they think you're rich and have a lot of money already. Cause many of them think bitcoin is a source of getting rich quick money-making-machine and those of criminal mind might wanna come after you afterwards to have their own part of the cake. Let's be careful out there, for the days are evil.

It's not a crime to own bitcoin, but in some countries where there's limited understanding of this technology, the government may suspect some people of involvement in money laundering just by owning bitcoin.

I know a friend who lives in a country in Africa and he mentioned that if the police discover he owns bitcoin, it would become a really big issue for him. There's a chance they might seize his money, as his country currently lacks clear regulations for cryptocurrency and the government strongly opposes its use.

Teaching bitcoin in the classroom is not bad but all depends on the subject and topic and the way the teacher present the topics to the students. If you do well in the area of your teaching then you can defend yourself in any court of law. Remember bitcoin is money so if you are teaching it from the economics perspective and mixing it with the Fiat exchange process then you are okay. And when come to the accepting of bitcoin in your business, you can use anything to exchange your goods to make profit. If I am selling groundnut and someone wants to take it and give me gold which I will use it to make more profit, I will accept it. And that is the meaning of business. I didn't offend anyone for that.

It will be risky to share Bitcoin awareness publicly in some countries where Bitcoin is not accepted by the government; however, it will be beneficial if the awareness is done in such a way that the teachers' privacy is protected to avoid government arrest for spreading what the country prohibits.

Better not to create any noise about your participation on any crypto activity since you don't know what other people think since they could do anything bad you especially when they think that you have a lot of money.

Just stay lowkey and don't make any move that can put your life at risk. Let other people discover crypto and you don't have any obligation to spread it to your neighborhood.

If Bitcoin's banned in your country, just forget teaching it to other people.
No "doing it cautiously" kind of sh*t here. If it's banned by the government, don't do it unless you're ready for the consequences. Yes I like people who are sharing information about Bitcoin, but if that will cause you to go to prison, or if that kind of act of yours will cause you to alarm the government then is it worth it? I don't think so, so just don't teach them. As for Satoshi, he/she/they don't care TBH.

Nope I don't think that it should be spread secretly or cautiously.

In some places where there is a high crime rate then maybe you can do it, but there are some places where you are still safe after doing it. After all, sharing knowledge to other people doesn't mean that you have lots of Bitcoin right? As for schools teaching Bitcoin, in my country I don't think that there will every be a curriculum that regards to Bitcoin (correct me if I'm wrong though), but there are some countries that are teaching Bitcoin, I guess.

Again, why address Satoshi as a male, and why you use "himself"? Evidences??

I'm not teaching Bitcoin to anyone as of now, but I'm aware of my security once there will be people who might get interested in learning it. I believe that those people who are teaching Bitcoin to other people are aware of their own security.

As I know, you won't be punished if you only talk about something. Punishments come when you host some kind of conference, meetings for a Ponzi operation or similar activities which have financial bonds. If you don't host such things, you will be well and no governmental staffs will knock your doors to send you into jails.

Like if Bitcoin is prohibited in your country, if you use it for payments, to purchase or exchange something with someone, when your trading activity is detected or reported to government authorities, they will find you and put you into jail.

If bitcoin is illegal in your country and has a penalty for whoever talks about it,I will advice you not to talk or let anyone know that you are into bitcoin,so that you don't implicate yourself.

On the other hand,if bitcoin is legalize in your country, it wouldn't be problem for you  to be a bitcoin preacher. You should also put into consideration the kind of people that you tell about bitcoin so that you don't end up telling someone that is a criminal or robber,because he might think of robbing you. If there will be too much risk to teach people about bitcoin, it is better that you don't do it.

Our own security should be the topmost priority in the first place. Especially in countries where they are strongly against with bitcoin, I guess the best thing to do is just to zip your mouth shut and secure yourself and your bitcoin first rather than spreading the information about bitcoin and the next thing you will see is that the government officers are coming to you. However, my country is not as strict like this when it comes to bitcoin. Although they make it clear that bitcoin is not yet legally adopted, but we are free to invest in bitcoin as long as we also take hold the responsibility to secure our own funds not to get scam. But I don’t think teaching bitcoin in a crowd is possible, as it could trigger the reaction of the government and banks officers.

Regardless of where you live, you will have to say goodbye to privacy if you use any cryptocurrency as a payment acceptance for services or goods rendered. And it is this aspect that the OP mentions in his post. Accordingly, if anonymity is an important factor for you, then you should not part with it so easily.

Secretly you say!
Bitcoin wasn’t meant to leave in the shadows or to serve as some currency that exists on the dark web. Bitcoin was meant for a world wide usage which requires it going public in a number of ways. Publicity by seminars, classes and more is one of those ways.

I get it that in doing this, one gets to expose themselves to security challenges as, you can’t tell who is in the crowd, there motives for being there and the steps they are ready to take based on there perception or what they perceive to be what is or what could be from the entire event.

This makes hosting such event to be something you should exercise caution about and be well aware that, you encroach on your privacy in doing so.

There is no need to become so crazy with promoting bitcoin since Bitcoin is not a crowdfunding network that needs advertisement to push it to the mainstream, bitcoin is already doing well and that is noticeable in the value of Bitcoin, and as that, we can say Bitcoin privacy practice become the best shot for anyone regardless of your country whether Bitcoin is legal or banned.

But promoting Bitcoin in a country where the government has an anti-bitcoin law, you risk losing your freedom if anything goes wrong and you get reported, I believe keeping silent is the best practice for any Bitcoin holder.

That’s also what I’ve been considering about bitcoin adoption. You don’t need to lecture everyone like going in a school and ask permission to teach. That would be risky knowing you are exposing yourself that you’re into bitcoin and that people may instantly think that you are hodling big amount of bitcoin which will eventually put  you in danger. So I’d definitely won’t do that. However, I make sure I’m also doing my part for bitcoin adoption by educating my family first and those close friends around me, but to be clear I won’t waste my time teaching to those whom I think will never agree on the advantages we can get from bitcoin.

Although I am not a fan of those that just comes to the forum and tell us tales some goes ahead to post pictures of a class room with the image of children clearly shown. It's actually wrong because most times the consent of those in the images wasn't seek, it's always right to do the right thing.

Also I don't agree with you that anyone genuinely spreading the word Bitcoin and Crypto-currency doesn't care about their own security. They are not stupid and have had good knowledge of Bitcoin to a certain extent and if a Bitcoin knows he should protect his wallet definitely would have the basic knowledge of protecting themselves too.

Agreed, Because we are taught that first save yourself then save other. Reason is if we can not save ourself then how can we able to safe other. But ban on cryptocurrency is only few countries now. I also hesitate to talk openly about my interest in BTC in public even in my friends too. But there are other factors too due to which i hesitate.

But i agree with your message, and we should really follow it like its one of our norms. But there is another thing included too, like if you are living in a village which is far away from big cities or at least far away from the authorities head quarters who mostly handle such cases. Then they also try not to make any step against such influencers. Because they know what they will find from them like they are not going to find millions of dollars in stead few dollars maybe.

But, we should hire some lawyer before such thing happen. I have seen many people try to hide there identities and i think i should learn from them too.

I don’t think those who dare to get out from their comfort zone and decide to spread awareness about bitcoin have not thought of their safety and security at first. Of course that’s already expected. However, my only point is that it’s useless to keep educating and convincing people to learn about bitcoin when they don’t have the willingness to learn about it in the first place. Though they might listen but it will only pass through onto the next ear so all our time and efforts will just go into waste. That’s why I don’t teach bitcoin just to spread awareness, but I make sure that if they come to me with their eagerness to learn and dream of bringing changes in their lives, then I would really help them without asking for returns.

In every country the government is like the eye of the country, like in my country Nigeria the government has ban crypto currency (Bitcoin) from some years back till now the government haven't made any reasonable comments about Bitcoin, so if the country is like this I don't advice anyone to proclaim the awareness of Bitcoin and moreover your safety is more important than anything, although given an advice to a relative about Bitcoin isn't a bad idea because if anything happens you can solve it within your selfs so it's more safer to tell Bitcoin to outsider's, in some countries you mignt even get arrested for investing in Bitcoin because you are going against the government. live to tell about Bitcoin because Bitcoin will speak for its self when the time is right, people will see the glory of Bitcoin and invest in it when the time is right and that might be the the price is around $100k and that time is near.

That's why we must know well several things firstly.
1. The legality (status) of Bitcoin in our country.
2. Who the object (people) that we want to share the information about Bitcoin.
3. How the circle of the objected people is.

At least, we must learn 3 things above. If no problem with them, then it is okay to spread the bitcoin awareness among the people in our country.

Anyway, spreading the awareness is a must. We can't expect it will find its own way, it should need efforts. Not every people have the same level of awareness, some of them need something to ensure their perception about Bitcoin. If people still feel afraid about Bitcoin, there will be awareness among them.

Teaching bitcoin is never bad, the only thing it gets bad is that when you teach bitcoin to a lot of people when all you know bitcoin is prohibited in your country. So that can be considered a crime, breaking your government’s law. That’s the reason why I don’t publicize that I am into bitcoin because I know I will always be the bad one, but I always discuss bitcoin with my friends whenever they ask to. At least I know I’m doing my part but not in a large audience.

In my country, the government is not really all out support for bitcoin, but if you try to discuss with few people around about bitcoin, other people won’t even care and definitely it’s not a crime in our country. However, if you offer to discuss bitcoin in a public school, or convincing the people around to get acquainted with bitcoin, that’s a different thing. You will eventually become the target of the government and charge you some penalty of breaking its law. Bitcoin is our future, but seeing most of the countries government are still one sided, then it’s safe to just keep bitcoin on our own.