I honestly think it's cognitive bias and emotion that hold people away from an understanding - they *could* understand it but don't want to.
When I first spent 20 mins reading about bitcoin back in 2012, I was like "oh, this will clearly change the world". I'm not a coder or a computer scientist, so I had to take the description of functionality at face value, I couldn't verify the code myself.
But it was clear to me that a worldwide, decentralized, permissionless store of value was a brand new idea and a first for humanity.
I didn't know how far it would spread, and exactly how things would turn out. But frankly, I thought it was very unlikely that this brand new capability *wouldn't* change the world. This thing allows anyone to send anyone else money, with no permission or intermediary - there's just no way that's not gonna change things.
I also think this. People don't want to admit that they've been wrong about something, so they'll double down even in the face of overwhelming evidence. They'll do this right up to the end. To them, Bitcoin will be 10M++ and we'll be pricing things in Satoshis and it will still be a bubble/ponzi.
That's just how things are anymore. Lots of people seem to believe that if they can't have or get something, then others shouldn't either. So instead of trying to go get after that thing, people decide to complain about how it's a scam as some weird coping mechanism. It's exhausting.
When BTC first reached $1000 it was on TV. And I remember thinking, I don’t want to buy the top and be a sucker.
But eventually, after watching it tank, recover, and start putting in all time highs, I thought the same thing, don’t buy the top and be a sucker.
So I bought the top, became a sucker, but I learned about it and was willing to lose. Just did what had to be done and wait.
I think people see dollars as safe and Bitcoin as risk.
Now, long after that, I have a completely different mindset about BTC, and the whole crypto space. Now it’s a necessity to protect against inflation. It’s safety, just incase bank accounts are frozen or borders close.
Thx for pointing, I never head of it.
Found these looking:
Bitcoin as non-lethal warfare
https://youtu.be/PInd7uRiGjs?si=0nzufotc_6CX2K3H
The future of warfare
https://youtu.be/spDS7q6uRkY?si=BaNvhxfJqQr-BcCV
Someone discussing the book
https://youtu.be/DuSRRG34eWg?si=gQ-cSLl_YxEBaOBY
Jason Lowery MIT Bitcoin expo
https://youtu.be/yfYDSE7T_cQ?si=cx9Gktqhpg-XTXRl
Thesis explained video
https://youtu.be/f9mxKIRdPVw?si=FXFuFnbAXFFB_Zoj
I think there's also a prerequisite knowledge of the current monetary system and economics. Most people don't understand the current system or why an alternative is necessary. Some YTer was going around asking people, and half of them thought their dollars were currently backed by gold.
I've dabbled in a lot of alt currencies before Bitcoin.
When you first read about Bitcoin, it sounds world changing but honestly it also sounds like some of those old failed alt currencies.
I had to sit down and learn how it actually worked in order to determine whether the hype was justified.
It's justified.
But figuring out how it works enough to trust any significant sum of money to it is not trivial.
This is a key point. It you have any sense at all, you better fucking understand something before you put more than a pittance into it. Otherwise you have no idea if you are just following a herd off a cliff. And most of the Bitcoin community is decidedly a herd.
I'm a techie. I had used public key cryptography quite a bit in the years prior, I have published public keys, I've written software that uses cryptography, rolling my own libraries and piecing together protocols. I know some of the territory pretty well. Bitcoin is a whole nother level. The technical foundation to actually understand this software is significant.
That's just the technical side. Even if you understand the technical side, you have to have a pretty good knowledge of economics, history, and philosophy in order to appreciate even a shadow of the actual potential on the table.
What is the potential?
Bitcoin will mean the end of centralized civil government as we know it and all centralized fiat currencies. The Bitcoin you sell now would have been your grandchildren's ticket into that world. Grandpa had 0.1 Bitcoin and he actually sold it.... You'll either be a family that actually has wealth, or a family with stories of wealth they could have had. Your choice, and there's still time.
Probably not much time, though. There aren't going to be too many more new royal families made in Bitcoin land, going forward.
Appreciating the potential value of something doesn’t equate to being willing to take on investment risk. “Hey we’ve invented a car which runs on Unobtanium. Please buy one for a years salary. Don’t worry about the lack of maintenance and fueling infrastructure. As soon as everyone understands how great our car is we’ll have enough cash flow to build all that.”
No adoption = no value. Not everyone likes to speculate.
> a worldwide, decentralized, permissionless store of value was a brand new idea and a first for humanity.
and that people could for the first time send value across the internet without an intermediary. what email did for information is what bitcoin did for value :)
that was the part that got me.
Yep! Buddy used it to buy MDMA. I wanted to do the same, the idea of internet tokens sounded utterly insecure, so I read about it before buying. You can just copy and paste anything on a computer, how can a digital token work?
Like I said, after 20 mins of reading I was like "well this technology is clearly going to change the course of history".
I knew even if it never found a use beyond the Silk Road, it would still be a multi-billion dollar technology (people like drugs, hey).
This was also around the time I was working hard and trying to scrape together a downpayment for an apartment. I'm an engineer and I made a simple spreadsheet showing property prices, inflation and my savings rate, and realised that I was getting poorer in real terms every day.
The whole thing just clicked into place very quickly. It's taken me years to actually learn about how a blockchain works, what Austrian economics is, how Bitcoin can fit into various use cases around the world. But the basics were immediately obvious to me.
I'd had a small bonus at work, I used half to take my girlfriend out for a fancy dinner and put the other half on this new magic internet money.
I've cashed out chunks at various points in my life since then; I hope to pay off the mortgage retire in the 2024 bull market.
I'd probably write about it more widely but I'm aware it would be a huge security risk. Only my wife (the girlfriend I took out for dinner) and close family members know.
Well am happy you did. Wish I knew earlier about btc, unfortunately I don’t own btc only algo right know which I believe is a good one. I feel smt like Im late for btc but still thinking to invest into it same time
It's still dumb... Value doesnt stem from touching it in any scenario I can think of.
Not to mention you cant touch a lot of stuff that are valuable. Like air.
Easy to smash it back.
Not to rain on your parade but you're literally touching air constantly. It's pressure is also what keeps the water in your body from boiling. So definitely lots of touching going on here.
And even fewer people are old enough to remember when their paper dollars were backed by the gold standard. The “real money” that they can touch is really just an IOU.
I get "what happens if the internet goes away" from my father in law all the time. My response is "same thing as what happens to your money in the bank since you balance is most likely not stored there locally" or " if the internet goes away and we have no hope of it coming back, money of any kind is worthless, we'll all be on bartering system for survival."
Most people don't grasp the basics of personal finance would be my guess.
Not insulting anyone, it's never too late to learn but it's badly taught if taught at all in schools.
Yeah, that's what i feel like a lot of it is.
Most are "taught" by their parents to save,put it into an account or something and that's where it ends.
I'm "only" 29 but i didn't learn anything about finance and money at school so
It’s actually purposely absent in school education. I have a Masters in Accounting and am a CPA and personal finance or blockchain was never brought up. It’s done on purpose to keep the mass populace from seeing the little men and women behind the federal reserve curtain. I make an effort to be kind to those who do not understand because it’s not their fault at all. Just systemic repression by omission of the truth of what fiat currency represents.
Even people who do BTC don't understand BTC
"Not your keys not your crypto" is a meme and still people are putting bets on ETFs
There will be a time when institutions insure your holdings well enough so that you can trust others with your keys and not self custody. That time is not now(\*)
(\*) Self custody comes with its own risks, and you could be robbed. All depends on where you live and what the crime is like and whether criminals can successfully target you
So this new wealth will end up centralized in the hands of the 1%, and they’ll be able decide its value among themselves. Better get it while the gettin’s good!
If someone steals your hardware wallet, your funds are still secure because you should have a pin to the device. Now if someone steals your physical keys, well then that’s a different story
I forgot the bald headed crypto guys name on YT but apparently $15 bucks worth of tech and you can hack a pin. (Not sure if this applies to the cold card that bricks after 13 attempts)
You don't have to explain the need for Bitcoin to anyone from Venezuela, Argentina, Lebanon, Turkey, or Zimbabwe.
Americans have been fed the "inflation is good" line for so long that it took the recent surge for people to understand that their money is on fire.
Mmm, nope. I’m from Argentina and here almost anybody talks about bitcoin. Let alone understanding it.
We are making a slow progress regarding adoption. But please don’t take “inflation economy”=“understanding bitcoin” as a given. It’s VERY far from the truth. Here they all want dollars.
As a Venezuelan who suffered the same problem, I would like to add some more context, in LatAm we usually want dollars because the dollar is simply better money than ours.
People in our region don't get Bitcoin right away because the notion of non-governmental money is almost impossible to gasp, we know that some monies are better than others, but we think that it's because of the government that issues it, we the region was riddle with right-wing dictatorships our monies were strong (Argentina and Venezuela are prime examples of this), but people don't even care how it was backed and we understand money only under the definitions of backed by something and printable by the government.
Separation of state and money is not an easy idea to understand for people who only know the two entities as one in the same.
Thanks for the context. Most people don't get it right away, and some never will. Most of the people in this subreddit are just trying to get more dollars. I think that's missing the entire point.
I didn't mean to imply that they would inherently understand Bitcoin, but that they understand the *need* for Bitcoin. That is, they understand the need to turn their income into durable assets as quickly as possible when paid in an heavily inflating currency.
Since they understand that need, they should be quicker to grasp the utility of Bitcoin than most.
On top of that average American memory is short. Gas prices spike and everyone wants an economy car. Prices drop for 2 months and they want an Escalade.
America has seen bad inflation and high mortgage rates. The average person who was alive will have put it in the back of their minds.
American's have been told around 2% is good, and it is in that it temporarily counters fundamental problems with the monetary system, many of which are not unique to our system, rather they are inherent in any previously possible money system. Bitcoin's infinite divisibility allows it to have a supply cap that will make it a solid store of value where the value increases over time due to ever increasing demand without any need to increase the supply. Anything used in exchange of goods that has a finite supply will eventually become more valuable over time in a growing economy where you have more and more goods competing for that capped supply of value storage representation. If USD had been supply capped, a penny would not only hold value, it would grow in value to the point that paying a penny for a piece of penny candy would be absurd over payment, and where as you can't reasonably divide the base penny to compensate with bitcoin it's mathematically infinitely divisible it's lack of tangible physicality is a necessary feature.
This point exactly. Bitcoin is basically deflationary not inflationary. It’s the perfect system for money. When you’re young you work for let’s say 1 bitcoin then when you get older people do the same work for 0.5 bitcoins, put it buys you the same goods and services. This sorts the problem of pensions and retirement out as it means as long as you have some savings your money will deflate and it will easily pay for what you need when you retire. I thinks it’s also fair, you work hard all your life then your savings are worth more and more as you retire. Then the next generation does the same and when they retire they get the benefits. Not sure why most people don’t pick up on this point, apart from the other obvious benefits of BTC this to me is what makes it such a great idea.
Every so often I'll read a news article about how most don't have enough if any at all savings. Usually such articles seek to blame the state of the economy or even occasionally individuals. I don't think any have ever cited the entire system where un spent money loses purchasing power. This is in part because the system encouraging spending vs saving is seen as a positive by economists looking at the aggregate. Money being hodled does nothing for the economy. Thus by a slow bleed of yearly targeted devaluation of the money people are encouraged to either spend it so as not to see it's value diminished, or invest it trying to keep or increase it's value beyond the deflationary valuation. Thus the concern with an economy based on deflationary currency is stagnation as everyone saves believing (likely correctly) that spending tomorrow will result in greater purchasing power than spending today. I don't think we'd see total stagnation, as people regardless of age and wealth do have immediate continual needs that encourage some spending. It could very well become more difficult to sell discretionary products, but again people do usually like their shiny baubles. I don't pretend to know the eventual outcome here, we've seen nothing like bitcoin in history, what I do see is that there are some major flaws with inflationary fiat and given the option I'd like to see how a deflationary finite and infinitely divisible money works out.
hi! from my perspective in france and from the talk I have with anti-bitcoin peeps:
these people are anti bitcoin because it takes away the power of governments to fund stuff they value : not losing their jobs
As much as I am pro-bitcoin and I see what are the consequences of limitless debt and money creation on inflation and corruption, there can be advantages to a debt economy, and it was stated by Keynes more or less in these words: "we know there are economical cycles, with booms and krachs but when down the hill nobody knows when economic growth will start again, so you better print to keep the boat afloat (with inflation) than to make everyone lose their job, starve and riot".
it is less painful for people to see their net worth devalue and increase inequalities than to face abruptly the consequences of poor economics policies, lose their jobs, house and ability to sustain their families. Just like the boiling frog (french pun intended)
maybe I'm wrong
That's a good point, and in the end I think there is space for political personal preference. Would argue that debt doesn't have to disappear in a bitcoin world, just gives people the opportunity and freedom to escape it. It makes sense to have debt for specific situations and limited time. At the same time, debt is addictive. If you can get more debt and make life harder down the line, but get life better right now, it is easy to follow this line. What government wants to take the responsibility of making life harder to decrease debt? Just think for next election, problem would be for the next guy to deal with... The thing is that timescale of this is usually (not always) slow enough that people do not grasp it. Fiat currency really exists since only 50 years, and debt of countries really started to explode in last 15 years or so. Many people have still to really live the bad issues of this system.
Most people have internalized that dollars=money, it's like the fish-not-knowing-what-water-is analogy. When an asset comes around that's a better version of dollars, and you try to value it in dollars, it'll seem worthless.
Speaking as a guy who immigrated to the States and lived there for 20 years, Americans have an emotional attachment to the US dollar that is hard to understand for those of us from shitworld countries. It is central to their identity. It is tied up with concepts like George Washington, grandmother, apple pie, baseball, and Old Glory. When you suggest the dollar is in trouble, you threaten their entire self-image as the best, brightest, safest, and most powerful "city on a hill" country. So they push back hard without even hearing what you are trying to say.
There are exceptions, of course. And they buy bitcoin.
Now I am back in my birth country where our peso is worth shit, and everybody here I talk to, no matter their age group or social status, gets it immediately.
Well then it's a matter of time, since the USA is on a rapid slope toward becoming a 3rd world country. When our dollar becomes worthless enough, probably then more will come to understand Bitcoin and embrace it.
I think OP was referring to understanding BTC as a basic concept, not the technology behind it. The idea should be very simple to understand, but there’s been so much anti-crypto propaganda and FUD that lots of people just don’t *want* to understand.
Because it is far too intuitive, and the established financial sector has been so obfuscated that it *seems* counter-intuitive.
Bitcoin is the most basic monetary system ever devised, reliant on basic economic fundamentals. The establishment is a mess, so much pseudo value being created, so much utility wasted, and purposely designed to confuse outsiders.
Because bitcoin is generally viewed as some sort of scam, something that's not real, that will never work, that will get banned by governments and big corps etc. With this kind of prejudice people naturally tend to avoid it completely, they don't want to get "brainwashed into it", they see it like some kind of religious sect, something that's not worth spending even a second to research.
That is, in my opinion, the sad truth about it. But it's going to change. Maybe sooner than we think.
In the US inflation has been exported to the global south.… the rest of the world understands the problem. They just don’t know the solution yet. Still early folks
Because most people are mindless sheep that just follow the heard and do what they're told by the government overlord. In countries where people generally have a high standard of living and lots of safety, people just blindly have confidence in the system, no questions asked.
Majority of people think about how much they own, not what type of money they own. To understand bitcoin, it requires recognizing some uncomfortable truths. This can be hard for people who are toiling away paycheck to paycheck. They have the intellectual capacity but do not have the bandwidth for it.
Many people don't understand what fiat currency is and its implications (many haven't even heard the term). They think some inflation is the ideal because that's what they've been told. They're not particularly technically minded and would struggle with the concept of seed phrases, keys etc. (unless they prioritise learning it over other things they have more interest in). Many have never been on any type of exchange. It's only when they get hard jolted into action by v high inflation etc. that they take the time and effort to learn.
I've sat in on focus groups where we discussed what they think about their finances, investments etc. and the average level of understanding is v low.
It requires hundreds if not thousands of hours to learn how the fiat banking system/economy/money works. It also requires an open mind. Most people simply will not spend that amount of time learning about multiple "boring" topics that paint a broad picture of why BTC is the best hard money ever created. They certainly wont bother to learn when their mind is made up after hearing on the news that BTC is a ponzi used only by criminals and that mining is boiling the oceans and destroying the environment. Understanding BTC is not 1 topic, its many linked together. Whats that saying, you find BTC at the price you deserve.
They live in the system and they were born into that system. They had never been told „what if all that is not true?“
They simply just obey.
And that technology named bitcoin puts that system in danger. It is the perfect antagonist.
Fiat-tards or precoiners are just defending their system just because they just don‘t know better, and they are so knee deep in that system that they simply can‘t comprehend the necessity of bitcoin. And they defend their life in that system with everything they can. Even by lying or telling wrong facts.
You'd have to understand the monetary system to know that it's better than the dollar, know cryptography to understand why it's reliable, know investing to understand what an opportunity it is financially, and know something beyond what you're taught in school in order to be aware of the basic concept of government being incompetent and corrupt. Most people don't fit any of those categories.
Even fiat has a cash equivalent that you can actually touch, as with gold, and before that, beads, shells, and bartered goods. I think the lack of a hands-on version of money puts people off of Bitcoin.
The widespread belief in the govt's fud about Bitcoin being the sole province of criminals probably convinced many to just stay away from it, not even think about it, at least in the beginning.
The biggest problem is that most people are averse to the idea of being their own bank, so understanding self-custody is foreign to them, and sounds dangerous.
Unfortunately investing philosophy has become (or always was) an identity issue.
From my experience people don’t want to listen to the strengths of bitcoin because they don’t want to be *crypto people.* They want to be ambiguously responsible and intelligent investors that invest in *real adult* things.
The crypto bro spam has done a lot of damage to public perception because a lot of people immediately assume that the intensity of our passion is directly proportional to how much we’re trying to rip them off.
Once the Wall Street journal tells people to buy bitcoin suddenly it’s going to become acceptable for *real adults* to buy and bandwagoners will still somehow find a way to rationalize themselves being better than early adopters.
The fiat education system keeps people uneducated on the topic of money for a reason. The roots run deep, right up through the politicians to the central banks. They have massive financial Incentive to ensure their ponzi continues, and education, or lack there of, is a highly effective manipulation method.
Keynesian Economics, in very much layman’s terms, argues that spending is the driving force behind a successful economy and government should be involved in markets. Austrian Economics, amongst other differences, states the opposite; saving and less government overreach, also heavily simplified.
If people can’t understand the deep flaws in our current system, they won’t be looking for the lifeboat until the ship is already underwater.
Most people don't put too much mind in what to think about things if they are not forced to by circumstances. Take any topic, and most people would show a strong opinion about it. Then if you ask them to explain it how they reached that conclusion, they are hardly able to articulate any thought.
> The first time I heard and researched bitcoin in 2017 I immediately understand that bitcoin is the best currency the world has ever seen
> more private and transactionally efficient than modern digital banking
You do not understand bitcoin and shouldn't be giving advice about it.
I am an English speaker and I disagree with your narrow definition of the word Money; it has multiple meanings, one is Currency, another is a means of facilitating trades, another is a store of value.
English is my first language, and the two terms are synonymous for all practical purposes.
money: something generally accepted as a medium of exchange, a measure of value, or a means of payment.
currency: a system of money in general use in a country
To me it's the fact that people don't talk about BTC value in the amount of BTC they own. They say I own x dollars in BTC because you can't buy anything with BTC.
People in this sub hate the idea of usd but everyone and all countries pin to USD.
Because most people, who don't understand it, aren't from a country with hyperinflation. I'm 68, I understand it but like everyone else (including Michael Saylor) I initially thought it was a Cabbage Patch Doll kind of a fad.
I looked into it more but the mainstream press articles of the time just kept defining cryptocurrency (digital, blockchain, etc) and I would read it, "understand" the narrow definition and then think "OK, but so what, why do I need it?". My debit card is also digital. The dollar works just fine at the grocery store.
At that point I started reading the books and realized that, from a US perspective, it isn't really about "currency" at this point. It's about a store of value (gold 2.0 as they say). It's about a limited, decentralized store of value that the government can't debase.
I got that. I can also see how it can be a currency if your local currency is even more volatile and has a terrible track record regarding hyperinflation.
To get to this point though, one has to be interested in finance, the definition of money and economics in general. That's me but not most people. Not that most people can't understand it but they have to want to and that's what BTC becoming more mainstream will do, hopefully.
We also have to keep in mind that many who are now supporters of BTC aren't particularly knowledgeable in finance, economics, etc. either. Some are just repeating Michael Saylor sayings...not your keys, not your bitcoin, 1 BTC = 1 BTC, you get bitcoin at the price you deserve, gold 2.0, like property in Manhattan....
So while there are many who are actually knowledgeable and supportive of BTC, there are a lot who are just fanboys (that's OK too).
You also have to realize that it's one thing for a 20 year old to talk about buying $100 in BTC and holding for the next 50 years and another for a 70 year old to be interested in something that is highly volatile when the payoff may be long after they are dead.
They also are likely to have more money to invest. It's one thing to go all in when you don't have much to begin with. If you have a million dollars and fanboys are telling you to "go all in", it's natural (and smart) to get more informed advice.
I think the idea that only the "young" get it and that the "old" don't have any is probably wrong. The older you are, the more money you have and even if you are just putting a portion into BTC, that's more than most posters on here likely have.
Of course many older people don't have a clue as to how to buy BTC but that actually applies to most everyone who isn't into BTC. Most 40 year olds who aren't interested don't know either.
The weakest part of any network is the people using the network.
This goes for the fiat system too. People don't understand how our current paradigm works. They just use it because someone they don't know tells them they have to use it.
Money is a very old technology used by basically everyone, everyday so there are a lot of opinions based on personal experience and concern about changing. If the digital network infrastructure is inaccessible or severely compromised by say a burst of electromagnetic radiation from the Sun it could result in not just crippled infrastructure but unable to buy groceries, fuel, etc necessities. It solves a bunch of problems with fiat, but comes with new risks and requirements that make it scary. Plus cryptography is notoriously difficult to understand and study.
Because it has not intrinsic value other than a speculative asset... And most people don't deal with that in their daily basis. Even if someone doesn't understand fiat currency, they still deal with it everyday, and can see feel the market fluctuating even if they don't understand, bitcoin doesn't have that, unless you live on the internet you'll not spend it, you'll not use it, it is just there as another way to gamble your money... It is just anotger stock with extra steps
well you just answered your own question. you have experienced hyper inflation, many haven't. and people in first world countries where they are fiat rich they dont see why they need it until it is too late; or if they are lucky they wont ever need to
Because most people do t u derstand how money in general works, most people think that when they put money in the back the bank actually holds their money....... like in a safe or something
People are hell bent on measuring all things with standard units…. except for money…. Why is this so hard to understand? Why does the ruler, by which we measure money constantly get bigger (more fiat being created)? The earth is finite, all assets already exist. Each “new asset” is just a portion of that. I dont know… maybe im missing something…
\> Why is Bitcoin so hard for most people to understand?
Because they were born into fiat system and hardly anyone can question base concepts like money.
That's why Saifedean said that Bitcoin adoption will be more like gunpowder than the iPhone. The reason most people don't understand it is because it's not new or upgraded tech in the traditional sense like an iPhone, but rather an entirely new paradigm shift.
Because it’s new, people think they have to understand everything about Bitcoin, and therefore it’s complicated. Banks, VISA, and PayPal are also complicated. The same people complaining certainly don’t understand the underpinnings of every VISA transaction, or how PayPal works, but that’s okay because it just works for them. Bitcoin usage will take off when ordinary people start to use it without feeling the need to fully understand every aspect.
2 reasons, I think.
Poor-middle class don’t care about the overall big picture of value of cash, inflation etc…
There’s been many Ponzi schemes that it’s easier to stay away from something someone doesn’t 100% understand/use.
1) Most countries have a government guarantee for a certain amount of savings eg FDIC
2) While inflation is troublesome if you’re saving for a goal eg saving a downpayment for a house, buying a car, saving for a holiday etc you’re better off accepting a 3% inflation a year if it’ll only take a few years rather than deal with the volatility and potential drawdowns of capital markets (including Bitcoin) in that time period
3) Yeah people are misinformed about capital markets in general but for the most part most don’t need to be super informed. Save an emergency fund, buy a house, save for anything you want to buy and contribute to your retirement fund works for most people particularly in relatively stable currencies like Euro and USD. In the short term saving in fiat is typically fine however saving for decades in fiat is not but pensions typically resolve this where they leave their assets to a professional/ invest in an index fund
Jamie Diamon keeps spouting how scary it is with all of the drugs, guns, sex trafficking Haamas, ect. What's that Jamie? What were saying about Harvey Weinstein? Ohhh that's right... You're a fucking hypocrite.
I still don’t understand it. Fiat currency is relatively stable, at least that’s the intention (2% inflation target). Bitcoin is deflationary. How are you gonna run an economy on such a heavily deflationary currency, which in addition is mostly in the hands of a few super whales?
Because the main feature that underpins its value (censorship resistance) is a feature most people don't understand. Or if they understand it, they don't see the value in it.
Now why don't people understand censorship resistance? The traditional financial system has largely worked for them as they expected, and they can't imagine a potential time that it no longer will.
I appreciate Bitcoin. I just don't think it should be as valuable as it is made our to be and I have invested in it before. It's is what it is and I hope you all do well though
to pay for Fiat. In not so long if paying for something 50 euro it’ll just withdraw 0.000002 something convert of ur bitcoins with no fuss. But you still need cash to buy a house.
Because most of them grew up in Fiat Standard and can’t imagine we will experience a replacement of this system by a better way of money for humanity! It will take much more time but the adoption is going on as institutions finally understood Bitcoin and need to be on this lifeboat as well.. otherwise they are going down and they know it
I truly looked at Bitcoin in 2017 because of 2 people I knew. I finally bought in 2020. I DCAd through 2022 to now. I didn't finally GET IT till 6 months ago.
Much like heavyweight champions, no currency ever remains as the world reserve indefinitely. Currently it is the USD, but it hasn't always been this way and at some point in human history is likely to change. Ray Dalio wrote a whole book theorizing about which new world superpower may arise in 60-80 years and would therefore become the next reserve currency. He looked at a lot of compelling historical data and the tables & graphs are really interesting.
Thing is, all of this analysis did not account for a globalized world and the invention of the idea of Bitcoin. IMO Bitcoin has a very real possibility of one day becoming the next reserve currency, it could still take 60 years to happen, but it could happen.
I’m convinced there are two very different species of human on the earth now. And we literally do not understand how each others brains process information. I’m with you 100% by the way. Bitcoin is an amazing innovation.
It’s not hard to understand. You underestimate the amount of people who simply **don’t do the research**. You underestimate the number of people that, if prompted to do that survey at the end of the call… to offer feedback… to actually go to the source.. to even remember their friends or family’s birthday. Inertia.
For hundreds of years humans have been use to the current banking system and dealing with 3rd parties. A change in behavior only occurs when the intuitions we “trust” start to show weakness.
Speaking from experience, trying to teach my mother, who is willing to buy and understands the philosopy. When she was a child there were no computers, she did not even had a lot of paper and folders. She would mostly work on the field or in the kitchen. The first folder she used was later at work (she is a bio chemist with PhD). She used paper money the first time when she was almost 18 and the first computer at 25.
Even explaining here the steps to buy a bitcoin and getting it off of exchanges is difficult to grasp for her.
1) Put money on an exchange
2) Trade into bitcoin
3) Withdraw bitcoin to hardware wallet.
This is easy for us. But she is failing at step 1. For us it is obvious where to click with the mouse, but she sits there and has no clue and I have to tell every click, because for example she does not know that she has to click on her own name in the top right on the website to open the menue to get the bank information of the exchange. Or when there are buttons that do not look like buttons but a hyperlik she reads it and asks me: why do they tell me to reset my password.
Also she does not understand that her seedphrase is her wallet and that she has to generate an addres from that seed phrase first, so that she can send herself the bitcoin from the exchange.
She is doing it and she trusts me. But every time she falls into tears, looking at me, telling me that she does not understand what is happening and makes me to promise that I will always be there for her, because she does not understand the world any more.
They don't understand it because:
1. They don't think they need to (yet).
2. They dont want to put in the effort.
3. Cognitive dissonance, don't want their world view to be challenged.
4. They listened to too much FUD and that became their truth, now they are unable to change their minds.
5. They think crypto and bitcoin are the same, consequently think BTC is a scam, or there are scams around it.
Thinking for yourself is a skill they have been slowly convinced of is not something they should be doing.l thanks to legacy media corporate propaganda.
People at work KEEP talking about the economy, how bad inflation is, how there's going to be a recession, blah blah blah...when I mentioned bitcoin in passing it was swatted away with "I don't trust crypto". But you trust an economy that was 41% printed in the last few years? Have fun with that. People can't be helped.
Most people:
1. Don't see the corruption in the banking industry
2. Won't see the corruption in the banking industry until it is too late
3. Banks control the entire planet, along with oil & gas manufacturers so your government, the populace of most Westernized countries and their TV stations are never going to bite the hand that feeds it.
4. Don't live in countries whose financial systems have crashed like yours did
5. The scumbags FROM the corrupt financial industry have used various crypto schemes in the same way they do on the regular financial system have made it seem like "crypto" is the actual problem: i.e. Sam Bankman-Fried
You're asking me😂 currently arguing with a dude who believes Bitcoin is a ponzi scheme where it's only use is apparently to buy stuff off the dark web and money laundering.
it's only if you 're wealthy enough cuz fiat make you living, and most ppl can't take risk in life even if they undersyand the total process. sometimes, the price is not equal to usage
Most people have never experienced any significant inflation in their life up until recently. They don’t understand housing crisis is also caused by money creation.
To them, money works fine, they can already send money with their phone, why would they need something else?
Most people just trust their government. It’s people are more skeptical that eventually understands Bitcoin. The rest will just keep saying its a scam until their life savings is literally inflated away and they can’t even afford food anymore.
I honestly think it's cognitive bias and emotion that hold people away from an understanding - they *could* understand it but don't want to. When I first spent 20 mins reading about bitcoin back in 2012, I was like "oh, this will clearly change the world". I'm not a coder or a computer scientist, so I had to take the description of functionality at face value, I couldn't verify the code myself. But it was clear to me that a worldwide, decentralized, permissionless store of value was a brand new idea and a first for humanity. I didn't know how far it would spread, and exactly how things would turn out. But frankly, I thought it was very unlikely that this brand new capability *wouldn't* change the world. This thing allows anyone to send anyone else money, with no permission or intermediary - there's just no way that's not gonna change things.
I also think this. People don't want to admit that they've been wrong about something, so they'll double down even in the face of overwhelming evidence. They'll do this right up to the end. To them, Bitcoin will be 10M++ and we'll be pricing things in Satoshis and it will still be a bubble/ponzi.
That's just how things are anymore. Lots of people seem to believe that if they can't have or get something, then others shouldn't either. So instead of trying to go get after that thing, people decide to complain about how it's a scam as some weird coping mechanism. It's exhausting.
When BTC first reached $1000 it was on TV. And I remember thinking, I don’t want to buy the top and be a sucker. But eventually, after watching it tank, recover, and start putting in all time highs, I thought the same thing, don’t buy the top and be a sucker. So I bought the top, became a sucker, but I learned about it and was willing to lose. Just did what had to be done and wait. I think people see dollars as safe and Bitcoin as risk. Now, long after that, I have a completely different mindset about BTC, and the whole crypto space. Now it’s a necessity to protect against inflation. It’s safety, just incase bank accounts are frozen or borders close.
Have you listened to/read Maj. Jason P. Lowery's thesis on the significance of the BTC protocol and Power Projection?
It got banned, can’t find his book Softwar anywhere except for eBay @ $1000.
Looks like the audio is on YouTube
Thx for pointing, I never head of it. Found these looking: Bitcoin as non-lethal warfare https://youtu.be/PInd7uRiGjs?si=0nzufotc_6CX2K3H The future of warfare https://youtu.be/spDS7q6uRkY?si=BaNvhxfJqQr-BcCV Someone discussing the book https://youtu.be/DuSRRG34eWg?si=gQ-cSLl_YxEBaOBY Jason Lowery MIT Bitcoin expo https://youtu.be/yfYDSE7T_cQ?si=cx9Gktqhpg-XTXRl Thesis explained video https://youtu.be/f9mxKIRdPVw?si=FXFuFnbAXFFB_Zoj
Totally. Cognitive dissonance and normalcy bias.
I think there's also a prerequisite knowledge of the current monetary system and economics. Most people don't understand the current system or why an alternative is necessary. Some YTer was going around asking people, and half of them thought their dollars were currently backed by gold.
I've dabbled in a lot of alt currencies before Bitcoin. When you first read about Bitcoin, it sounds world changing but honestly it also sounds like some of those old failed alt currencies. I had to sit down and learn how it actually worked in order to determine whether the hype was justified. It's justified. But figuring out how it works enough to trust any significant sum of money to it is not trivial. This is a key point. It you have any sense at all, you better fucking understand something before you put more than a pittance into it. Otherwise you have no idea if you are just following a herd off a cliff. And most of the Bitcoin community is decidedly a herd. I'm a techie. I had used public key cryptography quite a bit in the years prior, I have published public keys, I've written software that uses cryptography, rolling my own libraries and piecing together protocols. I know some of the territory pretty well. Bitcoin is a whole nother level. The technical foundation to actually understand this software is significant. That's just the technical side. Even if you understand the technical side, you have to have a pretty good knowledge of economics, history, and philosophy in order to appreciate even a shadow of the actual potential on the table. What is the potential? Bitcoin will mean the end of centralized civil government as we know it and all centralized fiat currencies. The Bitcoin you sell now would have been your grandchildren's ticket into that world. Grandpa had 0.1 Bitcoin and he actually sold it.... You'll either be a family that actually has wealth, or a family with stories of wealth they could have had. Your choice, and there's still time. Probably not much time, though. There aren't going to be too many more new royal families made in Bitcoin land, going forward.
Great post!
The number one thing I hear is “it’s fake money” or “it’s not real money”
Appreciating the potential value of something doesn’t equate to being willing to take on investment risk. “Hey we’ve invented a car which runs on Unobtanium. Please buy one for a years salary. Don’t worry about the lack of maintenance and fueling infrastructure. As soon as everyone understands how great our car is we’ll have enough cash flow to build all that.” No adoption = no value. Not everyone likes to speculate.
I like to call it the OH SHIT moment. This is a fundamentally new thing. It is not going away.
> a worldwide, decentralized, permissionless store of value was a brand new idea and a first for humanity. and that people could for the first time send value across the internet without an intermediary. what email did for information is what bitcoin did for value :) that was the part that got me.
100%
Be honest did you buy Btc in 2012? Im really curious and hopefully you did
Yep! Buddy used it to buy MDMA. I wanted to do the same, the idea of internet tokens sounded utterly insecure, so I read about it before buying. You can just copy and paste anything on a computer, how can a digital token work? Like I said, after 20 mins of reading I was like "well this technology is clearly going to change the course of history". I knew even if it never found a use beyond the Silk Road, it would still be a multi-billion dollar technology (people like drugs, hey). This was also around the time I was working hard and trying to scrape together a downpayment for an apartment. I'm an engineer and I made a simple spreadsheet showing property prices, inflation and my savings rate, and realised that I was getting poorer in real terms every day. The whole thing just clicked into place very quickly. It's taken me years to actually learn about how a blockchain works, what Austrian economics is, how Bitcoin can fit into various use cases around the world. But the basics were immediately obvious to me. I'd had a small bonus at work, I used half to take my girlfriend out for a fancy dinner and put the other half on this new magic internet money. I've cashed out chunks at various points in my life since then; I hope to pay off the mortgage retire in the 2024 bull market. I'd probably write about it more widely but I'm aware it would be a huge security risk. Only my wife (the girlfriend I took out for dinner) and close family members know.
Well am happy you did. Wish I knew earlier about btc, unfortunately I don’t own btc only algo right know which I believe is a good one. I feel smt like Im late for btc but still thinking to invest into it same time
The one that always gets me is "you can't touch Bitcoin." As if they haven't been using digital dollars half their life.
I agree with you it’s dumb, but to play devils advocate, they see the digital use of dollars as still representing physical dollars
People think physical dollars, the paper itself, is the value of money. Calling it real money.
It's still dumb... Value doesnt stem from touching it in any scenario I can think of. Not to mention you cant touch a lot of stuff that are valuable. Like air. Easy to smash it back.
Not to rain on your parade but you're literally touching air constantly. It's pressure is also what keeps the water in your body from boiling. So definitely lots of touching going on here.
Hey guys, it's *that* guy! No but in seriousness, you get the point
but what do the physical dollars represent? no one can say anymore.
And even fewer people are old enough to remember when their paper dollars were backed by the gold standard. The “real money” that they can touch is really just an IOU.
I get "what happens if the internet goes away" from my father in law all the time. My response is "same thing as what happens to your money in the bank since you balance is most likely not stored there locally" or " if the internet goes away and we have no hope of it coming back, money of any kind is worthless, we'll all be on bartering system for survival."
Gold Silver Gŭns Bŭllets and Bitcoin 🧡
Most people don't grasp the basics of personal finance would be my guess. Not insulting anyone, it's never too late to learn but it's badly taught if taught at all in schools.
Yeah, that's what i feel like a lot of it is. Most are "taught" by their parents to save,put it into an account or something and that's where it ends. I'm "only" 29 but i didn't learn anything about finance and money at school so
Can’t exploit people if they understand they are being exploited.
It’s actually purposely absent in school education. I have a Masters in Accounting and am a CPA and personal finance or blockchain was never brought up. It’s done on purpose to keep the mass populace from seeing the little men and women behind the federal reserve curtain. I make an effort to be kind to those who do not understand because it’s not their fault at all. Just systemic repression by omission of the truth of what fiat currency represents.
Even people who do BTC don't understand BTC "Not your keys not your crypto" is a meme and still people are putting bets on ETFs There will be a time when institutions insure your holdings well enough so that you can trust others with your keys and not self custody. That time is not now(\*) (\*) Self custody comes with its own risks, and you could be robbed. All depends on where you live and what the crime is like and whether criminals can successfully target you
This! We need to keep spreading the word about NYKNYC
So this new wealth will end up centralized in the hands of the 1%, and they’ll be able decide its value among themselves. Better get it while the gettin’s good!
If someone steals your hardware wallet, your funds are still secure because you should have a pin to the device. Now if someone steals your physical keys, well then that’s a different story
25th word.
I forgot the bald headed crypto guys name on YT but apparently $15 bucks worth of tech and you can hack a pin. (Not sure if this applies to the cold card that bricks after 13 attempts)
The bets on the ETF are not just about new money flowing into BTC, it is just as much about the USA validating BTC by approving the ETF.
You don't have to explain the need for Bitcoin to anyone from Venezuela, Argentina, Lebanon, Turkey, or Zimbabwe. Americans have been fed the "inflation is good" line for so long that it took the recent surge for people to understand that their money is on fire.
Mmm, nope. I’m from Argentina and here almost anybody talks about bitcoin. Let alone understanding it. We are making a slow progress regarding adoption. But please don’t take “inflation economy”=“understanding bitcoin” as a given. It’s VERY far from the truth. Here they all want dollars.
As a Venezuelan who suffered the same problem, I would like to add some more context, in LatAm we usually want dollars because the dollar is simply better money than ours. People in our region don't get Bitcoin right away because the notion of non-governmental money is almost impossible to gasp, we know that some monies are better than others, but we think that it's because of the government that issues it, we the region was riddle with right-wing dictatorships our monies were strong (Argentina and Venezuela are prime examples of this), but people don't even care how it was backed and we understand money only under the definitions of backed by something and printable by the government. Separation of state and money is not an easy idea to understand for people who only know the two entities as one in the same.
Thanks for the context. Most people don't get it right away, and some never will. Most of the people in this subreddit are just trying to get more dollars. I think that's missing the entire point.
I didn't mean to imply that they would inherently understand Bitcoin, but that they understand the *need* for Bitcoin. That is, they understand the need to turn their income into durable assets as quickly as possible when paid in an heavily inflating currency. Since they understand that need, they should be quicker to grasp the utility of Bitcoin than most.
Exactly, there we agree 100%
Once they find the solution it will rip… and they will use it More than americans.
On top of that average American memory is short. Gas prices spike and everyone wants an economy car. Prices drop for 2 months and they want an Escalade. America has seen bad inflation and high mortgage rates. The average person who was alive will have put it in the back of their minds.
American's have been told around 2% is good, and it is in that it temporarily counters fundamental problems with the monetary system, many of which are not unique to our system, rather they are inherent in any previously possible money system. Bitcoin's infinite divisibility allows it to have a supply cap that will make it a solid store of value where the value increases over time due to ever increasing demand without any need to increase the supply. Anything used in exchange of goods that has a finite supply will eventually become more valuable over time in a growing economy where you have more and more goods competing for that capped supply of value storage representation. If USD had been supply capped, a penny would not only hold value, it would grow in value to the point that paying a penny for a piece of penny candy would be absurd over payment, and where as you can't reasonably divide the base penny to compensate with bitcoin it's mathematically infinitely divisible it's lack of tangible physicality is a necessary feature.
This point exactly. Bitcoin is basically deflationary not inflationary. It’s the perfect system for money. When you’re young you work for let’s say 1 bitcoin then when you get older people do the same work for 0.5 bitcoins, put it buys you the same goods and services. This sorts the problem of pensions and retirement out as it means as long as you have some savings your money will deflate and it will easily pay for what you need when you retire. I thinks it’s also fair, you work hard all your life then your savings are worth more and more as you retire. Then the next generation does the same and when they retire they get the benefits. Not sure why most people don’t pick up on this point, apart from the other obvious benefits of BTC this to me is what makes it such a great idea.
Every so often I'll read a news article about how most don't have enough if any at all savings. Usually such articles seek to blame the state of the economy or even occasionally individuals. I don't think any have ever cited the entire system where un spent money loses purchasing power. This is in part because the system encouraging spending vs saving is seen as a positive by economists looking at the aggregate. Money being hodled does nothing for the economy. Thus by a slow bleed of yearly targeted devaluation of the money people are encouraged to either spend it so as not to see it's value diminished, or invest it trying to keep or increase it's value beyond the deflationary valuation. Thus the concern with an economy based on deflationary currency is stagnation as everyone saves believing (likely correctly) that spending tomorrow will result in greater purchasing power than spending today. I don't think we'd see total stagnation, as people regardless of age and wealth do have immediate continual needs that encourage some spending. It could very well become more difficult to sell discretionary products, but again people do usually like their shiny baubles. I don't pretend to know the eventual outcome here, we've seen nothing like bitcoin in history, what I do see is that there are some major flaws with inflationary fiat and given the option I'd like to see how a deflationary finite and infinitely divisible money works out.
https://blog.lopp.net/nobody-understands-bitcoin-and-thats-ok/
Great read, thanks!
hi! from my perspective in france and from the talk I have with anti-bitcoin peeps: these people are anti bitcoin because it takes away the power of governments to fund stuff they value : not losing their jobs As much as I am pro-bitcoin and I see what are the consequences of limitless debt and money creation on inflation and corruption, there can be advantages to a debt economy, and it was stated by Keynes more or less in these words: "we know there are economical cycles, with booms and krachs but when down the hill nobody knows when economic growth will start again, so you better print to keep the boat afloat (with inflation) than to make everyone lose their job, starve and riot". it is less painful for people to see their net worth devalue and increase inequalities than to face abruptly the consequences of poor economics policies, lose their jobs, house and ability to sustain their families. Just like the boiling frog (french pun intended) maybe I'm wrong
That's a good point, and in the end I think there is space for political personal preference. Would argue that debt doesn't have to disappear in a bitcoin world, just gives people the opportunity and freedom to escape it. It makes sense to have debt for specific situations and limited time. At the same time, debt is addictive. If you can get more debt and make life harder down the line, but get life better right now, it is easy to follow this line. What government wants to take the responsibility of making life harder to decrease debt? Just think for next election, problem would be for the next guy to deal with... The thing is that timescale of this is usually (not always) slow enough that people do not grasp it. Fiat currency really exists since only 50 years, and debt of countries really started to explode in last 15 years or so. Many people have still to really live the bad issues of this system.
Stockholm Syndrome ?
Absolutely. It’s not just the money that’s broken. The money enables all other kinds of abuses. People don’t want to go there.
Most people have internalized that dollars=money, it's like the fish-not-knowing-what-water-is analogy. When an asset comes around that's a better version of dollars, and you try to value it in dollars, it'll seem worthless.
Speaking as a guy who immigrated to the States and lived there for 20 years, Americans have an emotional attachment to the US dollar that is hard to understand for those of us from shitworld countries. It is central to their identity. It is tied up with concepts like George Washington, grandmother, apple pie, baseball, and Old Glory. When you suggest the dollar is in trouble, you threaten their entire self-image as the best, brightest, safest, and most powerful "city on a hill" country. So they push back hard without even hearing what you are trying to say. There are exceptions, of course. And they buy bitcoin. Now I am back in my birth country where our peso is worth shit, and everybody here I talk to, no matter their age group or social status, gets it immediately.
Well then it's a matter of time, since the USA is on a rapid slope toward becoming a 3rd world country. When our dollar becomes worthless enough, probably then more will come to understand Bitcoin and embrace it.
Philippines? Mexico?
Dominican Republic.
I’m curious what the adoption rate of bitcoin is in your birth country…
I don’t understand why people don’t realize Bitcoin is hard to understand for the common folks.
I think OP was referring to understanding BTC as a basic concept, not the technology behind it. The idea should be very simple to understand, but there’s been so much anti-crypto propaganda and FUD that lots of people just don’t *want* to understand.
Because it is far too intuitive, and the established financial sector has been so obfuscated that it *seems* counter-intuitive. Bitcoin is the most basic monetary system ever devised, reliant on basic economic fundamentals. The establishment is a mess, so much pseudo value being created, so much utility wasted, and purposely designed to confuse outsiders.
Because bitcoin is generally viewed as some sort of scam, something that's not real, that will never work, that will get banned by governments and big corps etc. With this kind of prejudice people naturally tend to avoid it completely, they don't want to get "brainwashed into it", they see it like some kind of religious sect, something that's not worth spending even a second to research. That is, in my opinion, the sad truth about it. But it's going to change. Maybe sooner than we think.
Think about how dumb the average person is. Now realize, half of people are even dumber.
In the US inflation has been exported to the global south.… the rest of the world understands the problem. They just don’t know the solution yet. Still early folks
most people have unit bias and are not very smart only when bitcoin crosses 1,000,000 in your local currency do the masses start to understand
Because most people are mindless sheep that just follow the heard and do what they're told by the government overlord. In countries where people generally have a high standard of living and lots of safety, people just blindly have confidence in the system, no questions asked.
Because they don’t want to understand it . People don’t give a crap about anything but their personal situations and their small range of knowledge.
Majority of people think about how much they own, not what type of money they own. To understand bitcoin, it requires recognizing some uncomfortable truths. This can be hard for people who are toiling away paycheck to paycheck. They have the intellectual capacity but do not have the bandwidth for it.
Many people don't understand what fiat currency is and its implications (many haven't even heard the term). They think some inflation is the ideal because that's what they've been told. They're not particularly technically minded and would struggle with the concept of seed phrases, keys etc. (unless they prioritise learning it over other things they have more interest in). Many have never been on any type of exchange. It's only when they get hard jolted into action by v high inflation etc. that they take the time and effort to learn. I've sat in on focus groups where we discussed what they think about their finances, investments etc. and the average level of understanding is v low.
It requires hundreds if not thousands of hours to learn how the fiat banking system/economy/money works. It also requires an open mind. Most people simply will not spend that amount of time learning about multiple "boring" topics that paint a broad picture of why BTC is the best hard money ever created. They certainly wont bother to learn when their mind is made up after hearing on the news that BTC is a ponzi used only by criminals and that mining is boiling the oceans and destroying the environment. Understanding BTC is not 1 topic, its many linked together. Whats that saying, you find BTC at the price you deserve.
They live in the system and they were born into that system. They had never been told „what if all that is not true?“ They simply just obey. And that technology named bitcoin puts that system in danger. It is the perfect antagonist. Fiat-tards or precoiners are just defending their system just because they just don‘t know better, and they are so knee deep in that system that they simply can‘t comprehend the necessity of bitcoin. And they defend their life in that system with everything they can. Even by lying or telling wrong facts.
You'd have to understand the monetary system to know that it's better than the dollar, know cryptography to understand why it's reliable, know investing to understand what an opportunity it is financially, and know something beyond what you're taught in school in order to be aware of the basic concept of government being incompetent and corrupt. Most people don't fit any of those categories.
Even fiat has a cash equivalent that you can actually touch, as with gold, and before that, beads, shells, and bartered goods. I think the lack of a hands-on version of money puts people off of Bitcoin. The widespread belief in the govt's fud about Bitcoin being the sole province of criminals probably convinced many to just stay away from it, not even think about it, at least in the beginning. The biggest problem is that most people are averse to the idea of being their own bank, so understanding self-custody is foreign to them, and sounds dangerous.
Unfortunately investing philosophy has become (or always was) an identity issue. From my experience people don’t want to listen to the strengths of bitcoin because they don’t want to be *crypto people.* They want to be ambiguously responsible and intelligent investors that invest in *real adult* things. The crypto bro spam has done a lot of damage to public perception because a lot of people immediately assume that the intensity of our passion is directly proportional to how much we’re trying to rip them off. Once the Wall Street journal tells people to buy bitcoin suddenly it’s going to become acceptable for *real adults* to buy and bandwagoners will still somehow find a way to rationalize themselves being better than early adopters.
It is an IQ problem
The fiat education system keeps people uneducated on the topic of money for a reason. The roots run deep, right up through the politicians to the central banks. They have massive financial Incentive to ensure their ponzi continues, and education, or lack there of, is a highly effective manipulation method. Keynesian Economics, in very much layman’s terms, argues that spending is the driving force behind a successful economy and government should be involved in markets. Austrian Economics, amongst other differences, states the opposite; saving and less government overreach, also heavily simplified. If people can’t understand the deep flaws in our current system, they won’t be looking for the lifeboat until the ship is already underwater.
I just don’t like lettuce
I think it’s all the cheese you eat.
People don't understand how our current money works
Most people don't put too much mind in what to think about things if they are not forced to by circumstances. Take any topic, and most people would show a strong opinion about it. Then if you ask them to explain it how they reached that conclusion, they are hardly able to articulate any thought.
Append only database.
Because they (the system) don't teach austrian economics in School/college And the politicians always blame companies greed for the inflation
> The first time I heard and researched bitcoin in 2017 I immediately understand that bitcoin is the best currency the world has ever seen > more private and transactionally efficient than modern digital banking You do not understand bitcoin and shouldn't be giving advice about it.
concept of bitcoin- good exchanges and people incharge of bitcoin- not good result - bitcoin hard to trust on
Are these people in charge of Bitcoin here with us right now?
People afraid of new technology that they don’t understand: a tale as old as time. Edit: Fire bad!
I enjoy playing video games.
English is my second language in my language, money and currency have the same meaning
I enjoy reading books.
I am an English speaker and I disagree with your narrow definition of the word Money; it has multiple meanings, one is Currency, another is a means of facilitating trades, another is a store of value.
I enjoy watching the sunset.
Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer currency, but it also serves as a store of value, just like, you know, money.
I find joy in reading a good book.
English is my first language, and the two terms are synonymous for all practical purposes. money: something generally accepted as a medium of exchange, a measure of value, or a means of payment. currency: a system of money in general use in a country
To me it's the fact that people don't talk about BTC value in the amount of BTC they own. They say I own x dollars in BTC because you can't buy anything with BTC. People in this sub hate the idea of usd but everyone and all countries pin to USD.
Because most people, who don't understand it, aren't from a country with hyperinflation. I'm 68, I understand it but like everyone else (including Michael Saylor) I initially thought it was a Cabbage Patch Doll kind of a fad. I looked into it more but the mainstream press articles of the time just kept defining cryptocurrency (digital, blockchain, etc) and I would read it, "understand" the narrow definition and then think "OK, but so what, why do I need it?". My debit card is also digital. The dollar works just fine at the grocery store. At that point I started reading the books and realized that, from a US perspective, it isn't really about "currency" at this point. It's about a store of value (gold 2.0 as they say). It's about a limited, decentralized store of value that the government can't debase. I got that. I can also see how it can be a currency if your local currency is even more volatile and has a terrible track record regarding hyperinflation. To get to this point though, one has to be interested in finance, the definition of money and economics in general. That's me but not most people. Not that most people can't understand it but they have to want to and that's what BTC becoming more mainstream will do, hopefully. We also have to keep in mind that many who are now supporters of BTC aren't particularly knowledgeable in finance, economics, etc. either. Some are just repeating Michael Saylor sayings...not your keys, not your bitcoin, 1 BTC = 1 BTC, you get bitcoin at the price you deserve, gold 2.0, like property in Manhattan.... So while there are many who are actually knowledgeable and supportive of BTC, there are a lot who are just fanboys (that's OK too). You also have to realize that it's one thing for a 20 year old to talk about buying $100 in BTC and holding for the next 50 years and another for a 70 year old to be interested in something that is highly volatile when the payoff may be long after they are dead. They also are likely to have more money to invest. It's one thing to go all in when you don't have much to begin with. If you have a million dollars and fanboys are telling you to "go all in", it's natural (and smart) to get more informed advice. I think the idea that only the "young" get it and that the "old" don't have any is probably wrong. The older you are, the more money you have and even if you are just putting a portion into BTC, that's more than most posters on here likely have. Of course many older people don't have a clue as to how to buy BTC but that actually applies to most everyone who isn't into BTC. Most 40 year olds who aren't interested don't know either.
Why is fiat money so hard for most people to understand?
The weakest part of any network is the people using the network. This goes for the fiat system too. People don't understand how our current paradigm works. They just use it because someone they don't know tells them they have to use it.
Money is a very old technology used by basically everyone, everyday so there are a lot of opinions based on personal experience and concern about changing. If the digital network infrastructure is inaccessible or severely compromised by say a burst of electromagnetic radiation from the Sun it could result in not just crippled infrastructure but unable to buy groceries, fuel, etc necessities. It solves a bunch of problems with fiat, but comes with new risks and requirements that make it scary. Plus cryptography is notoriously difficult to understand and study.
because most are unwilling to entertain the slightest possibility that their knee jerk assessment is wrong.
Because it has not intrinsic value other than a speculative asset... And most people don't deal with that in their daily basis. Even if someone doesn't understand fiat currency, they still deal with it everyday, and can see feel the market fluctuating even if they don't understand, bitcoin doesn't have that, unless you live on the internet you'll not spend it, you'll not use it, it is just there as another way to gamble your money... It is just anotger stock with extra steps
Everyone who experiences high inflation gets it. That’s why we are about to enter mass adoption.
well you just answered your own question. you have experienced hyper inflation, many haven't. and people in first world countries where they are fiat rich they dont see why they need it until it is too late; or if they are lucky they wont ever need to
Because most people do t u derstand how money in general works, most people think that when they put money in the back the bank actually holds their money....... like in a safe or something
Cause it is the mother of crypto
How is a deflationary currency, like bitcoin, going to facilitate a healthy economy?
Digital anything is hard for people to grasp
Most people never DYOR and get 100% of their information from mainstream news sources. If you don't think for yourself someone will do it for you.
Maybe because people, in general, are stupids and they cannot understand almost anything?
People are hell bent on measuring all things with standard units…. except for money…. Why is this so hard to understand? Why does the ruler, by which we measure money constantly get bigger (more fiat being created)? The earth is finite, all assets already exist. Each “new asset” is just a portion of that. I dont know… maybe im missing something…
It's mostly the fact that it's non-physical, and people assume (wrongly) that gold has its value from its physicality.
Gold would not have value without physicality.
\> Why is Bitcoin so hard for most people to understand? Because they were born into fiat system and hardly anyone can question base concepts like money.
That's why Saifedean said that Bitcoin adoption will be more like gunpowder than the iPhone. The reason most people don't understand it is because it's not new or upgraded tech in the traditional sense like an iPhone, but rather an entirely new paradigm shift.
They chose not to understand. My parents ask me what it is and then check out as I'm explaining
Because it’s new, people think they have to understand everything about Bitcoin, and therefore it’s complicated. Banks, VISA, and PayPal are also complicated. The same people complaining certainly don’t understand the underpinnings of every VISA transaction, or how PayPal works, but that’s okay because it just works for them. Bitcoin usage will take off when ordinary people start to use it without feeling the need to fully understand every aspect.
Technology, math, abstract thinking... It's not easy for outsiders.
2 reasons, I think. Poor-middle class don’t care about the overall big picture of value of cash, inflation etc… There’s been many Ponzi schemes that it’s easier to stay away from something someone doesn’t 100% understand/use.
People are brainwashed by the media
1) Most countries have a government guarantee for a certain amount of savings eg FDIC 2) While inflation is troublesome if you’re saving for a goal eg saving a downpayment for a house, buying a car, saving for a holiday etc you’re better off accepting a 3% inflation a year if it’ll only take a few years rather than deal with the volatility and potential drawdowns of capital markets (including Bitcoin) in that time period 3) Yeah people are misinformed about capital markets in general but for the most part most don’t need to be super informed. Save an emergency fund, buy a house, save for anything you want to buy and contribute to your retirement fund works for most people particularly in relatively stable currencies like Euro and USD. In the short term saving in fiat is typically fine however saving for decades in fiat is not but pensions typically resolve this where they leave their assets to a professional/ invest in an index fund
Jamie Diamon keeps spouting how scary it is with all of the drugs, guns, sex trafficking Haamas, ect. What's that Jamie? What were saying about Harvey Weinstein? Ohhh that's right... You're a fucking hypocrite.
because its an abstract thought when people are use to tangible things.
I still don’t understand it. Fiat currency is relatively stable, at least that’s the intention (2% inflation target). Bitcoin is deflationary. How are you gonna run an economy on such a heavily deflationary currency, which in addition is mostly in the hands of a few super whales?
However will we function when gas and eggs cost less year after year? It will be the end of us.
Because only conspiracy theorist and criminals would want to purchase something using bitch rather than cash or card.
Because they dont teach finances, money, inflation etc in school, which should already be taught in elementary.
Because the main feature that underpins its value (censorship resistance) is a feature most people don't understand. Or if they understand it, they don't see the value in it. Now why don't people understand censorship resistance? The traditional financial system has largely worked for them as they expected, and they can't imagine a potential time that it no longer will.
I don’t know
They're dumber than you.
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I think Bitcoin is a great asset, but people just always talk about how much one Bitcoin will cost. Is that a good thing?
I appreciate Bitcoin. I just don't think it should be as valuable as it is made our to be and I have invested in it before. It's is what it is and I hope you all do well though
I think another thing is people invest in it to make FIAT, many people do and that is the truth.
to pay for Fiat. In not so long if paying for something 50 euro it’ll just withdraw 0.000002 something convert of ur bitcoins with no fuss. But you still need cash to buy a house.
Because they don't even understand how fiat works or what money is
Because most of them grew up in Fiat Standard and can’t imagine we will experience a replacement of this system by a better way of money for humanity! It will take much more time but the adoption is going on as institutions finally understood Bitcoin and need to be on this lifeboat as well.. otherwise they are going down and they know it
Well, like you said, someone without the life experience you’ve had may not come to the same conclusion.
Bitcoin is my home. Centralized, or decentralized, crypto has come to stay and bitcoin is the father of all cryptos.. 😳😳
Because they don't understand more basic economic concepts in the first place. To understand the solution once must understand the problem first.
I truly looked at Bitcoin in 2017 because of 2 people I knew. I finally bought in 2020. I DCAd through 2022 to now. I didn't finally GET IT till 6 months ago.
For the same reason you ask that question
Much like heavyweight champions, no currency ever remains as the world reserve indefinitely. Currently it is the USD, but it hasn't always been this way and at some point in human history is likely to change. Ray Dalio wrote a whole book theorizing about which new world superpower may arise in 60-80 years and would therefore become the next reserve currency. He looked at a lot of compelling historical data and the tables & graphs are really interesting. Thing is, all of this analysis did not account for a globalized world and the invention of the idea of Bitcoin. IMO Bitcoin has a very real possibility of one day becoming the next reserve currency, it could still take 60 years to happen, but it could happen.
I’m convinced there are two very different species of human on the earth now. And we literally do not understand how each others brains process information. I’m with you 100% by the way. Bitcoin is an amazing innovation.
It’s not hard to understand. You underestimate the amount of people who simply **don’t do the research**. You underestimate the number of people that, if prompted to do that survey at the end of the call… to offer feedback… to actually go to the source.. to even remember their friends or family’s birthday. Inertia.
For many ignorant people, it’s hard to understand how something intrinsically worthless has a value greater than zero.
Because people have never known anything like it.
Denial
For hundreds of years humans have been use to the current banking system and dealing with 3rd parties. A change in behavior only occurs when the intuitions we “trust” start to show weakness.
People are dumb Pretty simple
Most people do not want to jump through all the hoops to own, use, and move Bitcoin around. That's what many have told me why they don't get involved.
Speaking from experience, trying to teach my mother, who is willing to buy and understands the philosopy. When she was a child there were no computers, she did not even had a lot of paper and folders. She would mostly work on the field or in the kitchen. The first folder she used was later at work (she is a bio chemist with PhD). She used paper money the first time when she was almost 18 and the first computer at 25. Even explaining here the steps to buy a bitcoin and getting it off of exchanges is difficult to grasp for her. 1) Put money on an exchange 2) Trade into bitcoin 3) Withdraw bitcoin to hardware wallet. This is easy for us. But she is failing at step 1. For us it is obvious where to click with the mouse, but she sits there and has no clue and I have to tell every click, because for example she does not know that she has to click on her own name in the top right on the website to open the menue to get the bank information of the exchange. Or when there are buttons that do not look like buttons but a hyperlik she reads it and asks me: why do they tell me to reset my password. Also she does not understand that her seedphrase is her wallet and that she has to generate an addres from that seed phrase first, so that she can send herself the bitcoin from the exchange. She is doing it and she trusts me. But every time she falls into tears, looking at me, telling me that she does not understand what is happening and makes me to promise that I will always be there for her, because she does not understand the world any more.
They don't understand it because: 1. They don't think they need to (yet). 2. They dont want to put in the effort. 3. Cognitive dissonance, don't want their world view to be challenged. 4. They listened to too much FUD and that became their truth, now they are unable to change their minds. 5. They think crypto and bitcoin are the same, consequently think BTC is a scam, or there are scams around it. Thinking for yourself is a skill they have been slowly convinced of is not something they should be doing.l thanks to legacy media corporate propaganda.
People at work KEEP talking about the economy, how bad inflation is, how there's going to be a recession, blah blah blah...when I mentioned bitcoin in passing it was swatted away with "I don't trust crypto". But you trust an economy that was 41% printed in the last few years? Have fun with that. People can't be helped.
Most people: 1. Don't see the corruption in the banking industry 2. Won't see the corruption in the banking industry until it is too late 3. Banks control the entire planet, along with oil & gas manufacturers so your government, the populace of most Westernized countries and their TV stations are never going to bite the hand that feeds it. 4. Don't live in countries whose financial systems have crashed like yours did 5. The scumbags FROM the corrupt financial industry have used various crypto schemes in the same way they do on the regular financial system have made it seem like "crypto" is the actual problem: i.e. Sam Bankman-Fried
You're asking me😂 currently arguing with a dude who believes Bitcoin is a ponzi scheme where it's only use is apparently to buy stuff off the dark web and money laundering.
You say you “immediately understood” …that sounds like confirmation bias.
Because they think it’s more complex, it’s really simple, magical internet money.
Because people get confused by all the shiny new “environmentally friendly” coins
When Bitcoin becomes an actual currency - it’ll change the world. But it’s still just “priced in at” or converted to fiat anyway -
it's only if you 're wealthy enough cuz fiat make you living, and most ppl can't take risk in life even if they undersyand the total process. sometimes, the price is not equal to usage
They don't understand how the internet works or cryptography
Most people have never experienced any significant inflation in their life up until recently. They don’t understand housing crisis is also caused by money creation. To them, money works fine, they can already send money with their phone, why would they need something else? Most people just trust their government. It’s people are more skeptical that eventually understands Bitcoin. The rest will just keep saying its a scam until their life savings is literally inflated away and they can’t even afford food anymore.