Bitcoin Forum

I wonder what is the easiest explanation of Bitcoin that you can come up with?  ;D

Anonymous, ultra secure, internet money.

That's probably the 1st few words I'd tell them. As for a detailed explanation but trying to make old people understand by dumbing it down I have no idea what I'd say ;D

A new digital currency - That's the only way of explaining it to them. The next thing would be if it's legal and we can tell them that it's  still new and growing popular day by day. The price would be enough to make them trust the currency :)

Why would you bother explaining to them?

Not being rude but old folks dont really care about new technology and are very ignorant about it.

Bitcoin will be mostly adopted by pre 40 year old people, or old wealthy folks, but not average. The rest are exception.

You can start telling them that it is a virtual currency. They'll probably reply you that it doesn't exist, or that they don't believe it, or they'll ask you to explain them better. Most elderly people are now familiar with ATM's, credit cards and some with online banking too. So it's easy to tell them that Bitcoin is like an ATM. Your money is just a number in a screen. The difference is, the number on the ATM screen belongs to the bank and the number on the "Bitcoin screen" belongs to you and only you.

Digital money that has value, because (name bitcoin pros).

Forget anything technical, even that it's internet based. Stick to its principals. It can't be stopped, can't be debased, anyone can accept and send it and you don't need permission.

In a few minutes you can send a million to a little guy in Africa and there's no waiting and no faking.

Explain to them, bitcoin is one of E-money which have high value. Dont forget to add history value of bitcoin until now. If they not believe with what you said, just show them your bitcoin amount in your bitcoin wallet, after that cashout to real cash, and then show them the money which you cashed out earlier. ;D. Goodluck

first cryptocurrency, anonymous even though not completely anonymous for me, low fees, and may be very simple to use because as long you have internet connections you could send your bitcoin anytime and anywhere but it all back to them because they must interested to using bitcoin because if they not interested even though you explain with more detail but still they would not use bitcoin

are your grandma/grandpa know and using internet ?  :P

You can start from online currency like paypal. Then you can explain them about cryptocurrency and they can purchase goods by using bitcoin. Also you can tell them about bitcoin's anonymously and its ability to be sent without fee . Remember not to explain something which is difficult for them so they would think bitcoin is an easy thing to learn and start to use bitcoin.

TO make them understand the bitcoin first you need to make them understand the technology.

It will hard for them to digest the fact that money can be mined through a computer program. It is not a conventional method. So most likely you are going to have a tough time making them understand about bitcoin.

But also remember that they are experienced about the world, so they will understand eventually but it may take some time.

It would definitely depend on how old they actually are, there are people who achieve grandpa/grandma status in their early forties  :P If they are old, like in their seventies/eighties or more, it would really depend on their lifestyles. If they are still relatively techie and curious, you could try explaining it to them in simple terms but they're happily living their lives without the burden of new technology I would leave them be. There is really no need for them to know about Bitcoin unless it becomes the national currency or something.

wtf this is a very strange thread? perhaps most bitcoin user to go is in the age range of 17-40 years ?
I do not see the users who have a lifespan of over 60 years. so I think they will not know how to use bitcoin itself?

heres my short explanation about bitcoin to my friends
Bitcoin is a digital money.A global digital currency and transaction takes place betwween users directly.

It's gold, but better.

1. It's a commodity, like gold.
2. All bitcoin transactions are public, but you don't know who participated in It.
3. The supply of bitcoin is slowly slowing down, like gold.
4. It's much more portable and easier to accept than gold.

There are numerous grandmas and grandpas who trade in gold, or stocks and shares. Even more hoard gold for a rainy day, or in the hope the price rises. Explaining Bitcoin's comparability to gold to that section of the grandma/grandpa community would be a good way of explaining the monetary value side to Bitcoin.

i think you can simply say to them that bitcoin it's like electronic fiat but without bank and government controlling it, this is the simplest way imho, also add that mining it's like printing lol, but with a better future

Money for the internet and then this is how you use it,,,,, simple :)

Depends.

I saw many grandma's and grandpa's far more intelligent and capable of understanding the world better than me.

I also saw the ones who forget what they did 5 minutes ago.

If your grandparents are the ones like in the second example, then don't bother it.

Sometimes they are stubborn to know new technologies and trends in the internet and it is diffucult to explain it to them but if Its complementary to explain then just compare same commodity like paypal or else a credit card to a bitcoin .

this is the hardest task to do of all times.
although i think it really depends on the persons who you are trying to explain bitcoin to.
for example my grandfather doesn't really have a good attitude towards technology and doesn't even like to learn about it either.
but my other grandfather is more interested in technology and he is kind of up to date. so it would be different to explain to him instead.

I think it will really difficult to explained to them, some of the grandparents even dont understand how to turn on computer, I think just forget it and dont bother to waste your time, but if you still want to explain to them,  the easiest way to explain is " its digital money, you can buy things using it, but not all people want to accept the money"

"Here's your allowance for this month, Grandma"

"That's so nice of you! How did you earn this?"

"I did mining."

"Mining? That's child exploitation and hard work for a 12 year old!"

This is a really good question I have not came up yet :)

I tried to explain Bitcoin and all the crypto currency stuff to teenagers and young adults which are using social networks and computers all day in private and at work, but I failed. So I guess explaining it to the generation of our grandmas and grandpas is the biggest challenge you could have. Nevertheless, if you find a method or strategy, let me know. I can certainly use it to explain it to teenagers and young adults, too  ;D

Alas at that old age it is unlikely they will be willing to take the time to understand the magic internet money. Just tell them it's magical internet money and be done with it

hi gran and gramps
can i borrow/have your life savings to invest in a new digital currency.


just get to the point with them,
as this is what i assume the conversation would really be like.

most likely they would not care too much, depending on their age

You can tell them that bitcoins are the digital currency. They may not easily understand it as they cannot even think of science and technology being so advanced. Yet you can try explaining them.

First of all, what is the reason for you to explain "seriously" what bitcoin is to your grandparents.

Are you just willing to told them about this currency seriosuly or just came up with an idea of making a thread here?

Not an easy task I can tell.
I'm even struggling to explain my parents how Bitcoin works.
My father seems to grasp a bit of it.But my mother only shrugs with her shoulders everytime I'm speaking about it. :D
And my grandparents absolutely have no clue.They don't even know how the internet works.

Sorry man, there's just no possible way. The concept is too radical. I have a hard time explaining my friends what is Bitcoin, they just can't wrap their heads around a system where no one is in charge of the monetary supply. My grandpas would never understand what the internet is, let alone Bitcoin. That's for the next generation man.

1st of all hold your nerve, be calm and have patience  when your trying to explain about bitcoin to someone who doesnt know anything of it, well you just can say its a internet money similar to your fiat currency earned in different ways like faucets, mining, trading, gambling, online job etc. and it depends on how they take it, well i tried to explain it to my friends and i wonder what did they understand, and i have no idea how to give a explanation to old age people:)

It's will be easier for you to grandma and grandpa if you teach them about the usefulness of bitcoin in positive activities. And you can gather bitcoin for free no need some requirement for gather it.

If you want a relatively simple and easy video for them to watch, show them this video; https://bitcoin.org/en/

If you want to actually explain it to them, tell them it functions mostly like normal money, but with some differences. Explain how more comes into existence, with the 21 million Bitcoin limit, how a block works, what it is and how it rewards the miners, explain how miners work and how they look for a string of code as opposed to just getting it, tell them how wallets work, and what services are available. Encourage them to ask questions, and study up on the technicalities of Bitcoin beforehand and then try to simply and condense them so they can understand.

Anonymous digital currency. This is the best way to put it in 3 words. If you want to explain more you can say it's all over Internet and is decentralized no banks or any particular country doesn't control it.

i wouldnt be bothered by that, older people usually dont get into technologies really well so i would just tell that its new money

it is so much harder to explain bitcoin to older generation in general. they are used to their old ways and usually they don't want to see any change. but in any case i think you should take the same route to explain to the as you explain to anybody else, and in this method i think a good youtube video will do wonders.

Depends on how much they know about technology. If they know a little bit of something, you can just explaim them that it is a digital currency with no goverment involved, a high price and low transaction fees.

If they don't know anything about new technology, you probably shouldn't bother explaining.

it is very difficult. I think a better explanation bitcoin accepted by young people. if it had touched an old age it is very difficult. because before explaining bitcoin we are required to explain how the computers and technology. I think it's impossible.

Tell them that it is anonymous.
Tell them it is secure.
Tell them it is easy to use and reliable.
Tell them that they can send money to their loved ones in world anytime with one click.
Tell them that its best for long term investment.
Tell them that transactions are free of cost and instant .

But one question why do we need to explain bitcoin to grandma or grandpa ? Let them enjoy the remaining days of life instead of telling about bitcoin :P

Seriously... I tried. It's impossible.

Why do u need to explain them about the bitcoins. They not going to use it even if you tell them so it no use explaining them. If you need to permote you should teach about bitcoins to your children or grand children, as they will be the the ones using them.

You simply say it's money controlled directly by the people. Unless you're talking to a person with a technical background, your explanation can't be very detailed.

Well you simply say that bitcoin is a currency that can be used online.  ;D It is a cryptocurrency that have a potential to grow in the future. But I personally think that it's impossible to persuade them to use bitcoin.

Well, explaining anything to a grandma/grandpa is difficult in my opinion. Especially with new technology. If they are familiar with economics, just say that it's better than banks. You don't need banks when you have BTC.

It is decentralized, safe, global and anonymous.

Fast and Easy Internets Money

Bitcoin is an improved version of physical gold. It's like the old model only now you can send it through the internet.

~~

I think nothing is impossible. there are many parents who are adept at using computers. at least they can use the internet. they could definitely use bitcoin nothing is impossible dude

Bitcoin will be difficult to explain to our grandparents, they may not be familiar about happenings online. if i were to explain this to my grandparents, i would say that bitcoin is digital currency just like fiat.

Tell grandma or grandpa that bitcoin is an asset that you can't see, touch, hear, or taste, isn't backed by precious metals or a business and whose value can rise or fall by 30% or more within the course of a day.  My guess is that if your g-folks are 60+ years old then anything you tell them about cryptography, SHA-256, decentralization, etc., will fall on deaf ears unless they're educated about computers and stuff.  A lot of grandparents aren't.  Mine are all dead, but they definitely were bystanders to the tech revolution.

Maybe it's will easier just to explained with them with simple reason and easy to understand like,I can get bitcoin for free and I can sell it for some dollar.

explaining bitcoin to a grandma or grandpa can be the mission impossible.

but i think the best way to do it is to use a good video, you may find some on the internet by searching in youtube which might help you in explanation.

'advantages like hold and increase your money' is the easiest explanation that you can give to your grandfather. also give him the link to blockchain and bitcointalk. further he will learn it by himself.

I really don't think it's impossible. They might be a bit dumb but usually if you are patient enough to explain something to them, you can get the general idea across. After all you're their grandson.

I think the best way is to give them a Christmas present of 1 BTC. Let them figure out how to redeem it :D

The problem is that most of the older generation do not really know what the internet is or what "online" mean. Sure some has already used it but most not. So, better strategy is to explain that Bitcoin is a modern version of Gold or Silver. This could work very well, but stay away from explaining them the technical side of Bitcoin.

Paypal meets BitTorrent.

No need to explain. Just tell them you need to turn off the internet if you want it to stop.

Yeah  :). Its very hard to explain what is BTC because of their generation dosen't aware of our new technology about internet. If they luckily know means we can explain btc is like a online banking where we holding our money and transact in internet. Thats it. Then its again bit difficult to explain about BTC if they didn't know about online.

You don't have to explain them every technical detail about blockchain etc. try to keep it simple by telling them it is an internet currency that everyone can use,it is anonymous and very safe to use.But i am afraid that still it will be hard for them to understand,good luck.

I would start to explain Bitcoin to my grandparents by telling them it's money issued out by computers over the Internet. I would add also that there is no central bank overseeing the process and that every person can hold this kind of money without disclosing their personal information to the authorities. I think it would be very hard to explain how Bitcoin transactions and wallets work though because that would require some technical knowledge but other than that the general idea of Bitcoin could be understood if explained properly I guess. Just don't get stuck explaining technicalities :D

That is the most accessible explanation for a grandma or grandpa, because it is based on a concept they can easily relate to. However I would change the sentence "It's gold, but better." to "It has a lot of similarities to gold, the difference being that computers do the work that mining companies do by extracting phyiscal gold.".

Also your 3rd point is a bit questionable, since gold supply is fluctuating but remaining relatively steady longer term. I would change that to: "The supply of Bitcoin is strictly limited. Nobody can generate Bitcoin out of thin air."

It makes no sense to portray Bitcoin as being better than gold, because that is a quite strong claim which is not easily believable given the thousands of years of history gold has in its favor. It's sufficient to portray Bitcoin as something highly similar, yet more modern. That is convincing enough.

ya.ya.yo!

But, but ... that's what miners do!

hahahahahahaha... now you have to explain mining.

Well the original statement technically makes sense, it does take some effort to be put in and some energy in order for Bitcoins to be generated, and they don't just appear... and now I see you were being sarcastic.

I think he can just say that it requires computers to look for a single line of coding (basically) and they have to make trillions of calculations every second in order for someone to find some Bitcoin after ten-ish minutes.

Grandma: so in 10 minutes I can haz my 50 bitcoins?
Grandpa: the reward is halving grandma, it will be 25, o wait, it's halving again, it's now 12.5 bitcoins.
Grandma: oh. so in 10 minutes I can haz my 12.5 bitcoins? WTF is halving? What do you take me for? Obsolete?
Grandpa: You need a dedicated application specific integrated circuit bunch of chips to mine on a pool.
Grandma: I don't swim, I'm not going into any pool with you.
Grandpa: (crap, no sex again for another 48 hours, I'm getting too old for this shit, you grandson, go buy me a beer!

Just explain to them that bitcoin is a means to pay your bills without the need to go out of the house, and it can be sent through just a single click of a mouse. They would crazy if you explain technicaly about bitcoin like blockchain, mining, etc, i think grandparents in this era are familiar with e-payment, and majority of them use it,

"online money"

I think it's a simple term to tell grandma and grandpa as long as they know what online is. the thing is if your grandparents don't know what "online" is, but I think the term is known by most of people. so you can tell them that bitcoin is online money

I guess it was not necessary, the benefits of what you can do if teach them about bitcoin? because I think bitcoin too complicated for older people especially who are not familiar with the technology / internet. an easy way for old people is to fiat money they've known it since they were born instead. different with us now who are familiar with bitcoin, then in the future if we are old we prefer bitcoin I guess. hehe

Saw this (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CXr_3aAWwAI8_CK.png:large) online and remembered this thread. It might be relevant, I don't think it was posted before :) Can't find it in higher resolution unfortunately.

Dude, that explanation will scare off the kids, if they saw that.... I do not even want to think what Granny will think of that, if I showed her that. I can already see this... Granny - Sonny get me my

glasses and let's see if I can figure this out... Why are there so many lines? I just told her, " Gran, it's the electronic version of regular money, BUT just a lot smarter " She then asked, But what if the

computer do not work, can I still use it.... And then I said... " Gran, we do not only use our computers... you use your cellphone too.. The response was .... " This is Cool "  ;D

bitcoin is suitable for all ages. including grandpa or grandma. You can still tell them about bitcoin. but most parents are blind to the technology and bitcoin live online and use the internet to its use? maybe you'll difficulty in telling them. I'm also confused as to how to tell them about bitcoin?

Lol, this made me laugh hard  ;D

I think we can explain Bitcoin to old people by simply trimming down the tech behind it.  We can tell then that it's some kind of token with equivalent money value and is adopted by lots of merchant in the whole world and can be use to buy stuff.  Digital currency is a bit too deep for them to understand especially to those non-techy senior people. But they are familiar with token.  So for a starter we can use the term token and when they are comfortable using it, we can then explain it little by little or they can figure it out what bitcoin really is themselves :D . Don't look down on seniors! they are Far knowledgeable than us in terms of experience and adoptation.

Well, say that they can use their old PCs to generate some income for them if they can just leave their PCs on 24/7. I mean, they won't really, but it's a good way to lure someone into BTC.

Also if they understand what decentralized means, explain that to them too.

Seriously whenever I attempt to explain something to my grandparents this does not end well. It usually goes into a spiral of never ending questions. Whenever there is a new idea you have to explain it.

"Decentralized anonymous virtual currency" sums it up nicely i guess.

I think explaining it to a not techy grandpa or grandma is not worth it since they will not be interested on it.But if they really want to know it they can easily understand it even ifnyou said the basics only on bitcoins

Just like how you explain it on other person or on your friends.Treat your grandma and grandpa as friend and teach them like a age of yours.That would be god

Just tell them there's another world on the Internet and that's where you can find bitcoin. Tell them that bitcoin is just another currency like dollars, euro, etc. The only difference is that you can only get access to your bitcoins if you have Internet but just like the other currencies, you can exchange bitcoin into another currency as well.

That's nice but I don't think at older age they will entertain bitcoin or would be interested in knowing it, as they are enjoying their retirement life they will not bother to earn money now.