bitcoin is not a scam. You had admitted earlier that "the distributed ledger is a genuine technological innovation which demonstrates that digital records can be held securely without any central authority."
Bitcoin itself is not a scam.
Telling common folk to invest in bitcoin because it is safer than stocks, because it will be worth a zillion in a few years, because it will be the currency of the inerne, etc. -- that is a scam. Even, or especially, if supported by pseudoscience like the logscale straight-line extrapolation, the (total e-commerce)/(finite suppliy) argument, blockchain statistics passed off as usage statistics, etc. Especilly if the victim is not told that the price will depend on the mood of the Chinese tea traders, that no one will care if his bitcoins get stolen, etc..
(TelexFree had a non-scam product, some uninteresting VOIP card. The scam was getting millions of people to invest all their savings in the MLM scheme.)
No one is telling you to tell lies. Just say what bitcoin really is. Explain why it is a genuine technological innovation. Tell people about the history of money. Tell them about the gold standard, how it was decoupled, why value of currencies is eroded over time though it is no fault of theirs. Lastly, tell them what you know about the potential pitfalls of bitcoin. Leave them to make their own decision. Try not to impose your own value when explaining, you wouldn't want to do them a disservice.
Have you considered the scenario where bitcoin eventually becomes accepted and used by the majority of the people on this planet? Will the people whom you had advised hate you for that?
That is what I am very skeptical about.
I tell people
why i am skeptical. Ultimately it will be their decision to invest or not. I will run the risk of being wrong.
Have you considered the scenario where the price will crash to 100$ or less? Will the people whom you convinced to invest their savings at 800 $/BTC hate you for that?
I will tell people about bitcoin, the good part of it, the bad part of it. Actually bitcoin itself is a genuine technological innovation, like what you had agreed. It is when other forces interact with it, then there are potential repercussions. Like what I explained above, I will first provide them the context, i.e., the history and evolution of money, then our current money system, followed by the invention of bitcoin and its ingenuity, the major actors and their concerns (here you can mention all your different perspectives, political, social, etc), and lastly, what it means to them as an individual. I will explain to them how they should respond from a cost-benefit perspective. Lastly, and very importantly, advise them never to invest what they cannot afford to lose. If you want, you can adopt the approach I take and adapt accordingly.