Bitcoin Forum

Okay, I was bored here at work the other night, even cruising the forum was getting a bit tiresome, so I walked around the shop and conducted a kind of informal, totally unscientific survey of who in this place had even heard of Bitcoin. After some confusion regarding the singular/plural method of saying "Bitcoin" when I meant "Bitcoins" (sorry; this is the midwest) I came to the conclusion that not very many people out there know about Bitcoin, period. In fact, in this medium-sized machine shop (maybe a hundred folks here on second shift), I only found one college-age kid who really knew what I was talking about. Two or three others had heard the word before, but had no idea what it really was or represented. Median age here is probably mid-30's, i'd guess, I blame part of it on that, probably my sampling cross-section is not very good, mostly lower-middle class white males in their 30's and 40's. Anyway. I was a little shocked that I could find only one person out of maybe 50-70 that actually knew what the heck a bitcoin is. (Some people I just looked at and walked on.) In a white-collar environment the number would probably be higher, of course. But aren't these people the base of the economic pyramid? Aren't these the people that we need to get involved in this revolutionary financial experiment? Somebody needs to get the word out. I don't think I made any converts, though I admit, a few of them did get a little excited when I mentioned the possibility of buying automatic weapons and grenade launchers on Silk Road (Once again, this is the midwest). Bored, and just thinking.

russell

So what are you going to do about it??! Be a local promoter!

Even though bitcoins have been featured on Bloomberg and the like I would most definitely agree that they seem to have reached a small audience thus far. I even had to explain cryptocurrencies to my uncle (he used to write software for HP).

> So what are you going to do about it??! Be a local promoter!

I did somewhat, though I think I would have had better luck with most of these guys if I could have pointed to more (or even one) porn sites that accepted BtC... I have promoted the coin tirelessly within my own family, to the point where most folk's eyes glaze over when I show up. I even gave my nieces 5 coins each (back in the $12 days), the oldest spent hers immediately while the youngest has hung onto hers only to see it appreciate considerably (to the disgust of her father, who thinks BtC is libertarian madness... hah hah, very satisfying, thanks to me she now has way more money in her wallet than her bank account...). I tried once to convince a lady at a local flower shop it would be to her advantage to accept BtC for her online orders, but I couldn't tell her where to go for the software and such to integrate it into her system. I think until that's more widespread, "plug-ins" and drop-in software for retail sites, BtC will spin it's wheels. It's got to be almost as easy as regular money or I don't think people (retailers) will do it.

russell

My mom and my brother. My sister has a vague idea about it.

I know one person who has heard of them.  ;)

Bitcoin merchant sites like bitpay and coinbase will allow more online retailers to accept btc. More people will know about btc since they will see it on their favorite sites.

2 of my friends know about it, and 99% of others don't. The crypto niche is still small maybe 300k people?

I think all aspects of it are going to have to get easier. I have a good friend who actually introduced me to Bitcoin while I was recovering from a stroke and more or less strong-armed me into starting to mine ( I think just to get me involved in /something/ ), and yet he has no real interest in it at all, other than intellectually. I even tried to give him some coins once to play with and he "didn't want to have to learn all that stuff", unquote, though he might be more interested now that the coin is above $100. I think it's going to have to be as easy as using a credit card for most people, it's still a geek/nerd thing now, with a steep (though not impossible) learning curve. At least if you don't want your wallet ripped off and bad stuff like that.

Like the quote goes, if you make people think they're thinking they'll love you, but if you actually make them think they'll hate you.

russell

No-one I know has heard of it before I told them.

Ask again in 2 years, maybe a few more people will know.

I wear a Bitcoin t-shirt 1-2 days a week. I wear it when I know I'll be in places with lots of people. About once a month, someone will walk up to me and say, "Hey, you're into Bitcoin too?" Those are other miners. About every 6 weeks, someone will say, "I saw that on the news...what is that?" They usually think it's associated with "the dark side" and I politely explain that just as BTC can be used for those things, so can cash. Since people don't view cash that's used for those things negatively, neither should they view BTC negatively. Then I talk about what I've used it for (t-shirts, computer equipment, gifts), how the Winklevoss twins are creating a fund for it, how the transaction fees compare to PayPal and banks, or whatever I can do to create interest.

I figure the more people that know about it, the more it will be used...and the value of my BTC will go up  ;)  And even if nobody talks to me, it gets the BTC name out there in people's minds. It's a good-looking shirt (black, with orange "bitcoin" written in the bitcoin [ubuntu] font).

So get yourself a t-shirt!

Yeah hopefully. Who knows where we'll be in 2 years.

Possibly a few petahash/s, and bitcoin a few thousand USD?

It's difficult to explain/understand the concept within a few minutes.

Yea most of my friends don't have a clue about bitcoins or how they work. Its gonna take a while before this catches on

Better subject would be: Who has heard of bitcoins?

Most people look at me strange

You are strange.

pepole who never use the internet? probably 30% of the worlds population.

Less than 1% people who use internet.

Probably more.
Bitcoiners are not a lof of people ...

I agree, but most dont need Bitcoin technology for anything

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
2,405,518,376 internet users.
So you're saying bitcoin has more than 24 milion people involved? Cool story bro.

Hmmm.
OK, maybe less.
But more than you think :P

Less than a million for sure. They might have randomly heard about it, but have no clue or don't care enough to google more.

More and more people know every day, always a surprise to me and ever increasingly so..