Bitcoin Forum

I came across a lot of thread where people say "Lack of technical knowledge is the reason why people don't use bitcoins". I need to know why such people think technical knowledge is required to invest in or adopt bitcoin.

Let's say, professor of Arts is given a laptop without any working internet browser can he surf the web. Majority of us cant. The browser makes it look easy. Some of the non-technical people might not know what tls_ecdhe_rsa_with_aes_128_gcm_sha256 Connection encrypted is, that doesn't stop them from banking online.

I don't know what technical knowledge is required to fly an Airbus A380 but I have been a passenger of one, I took the risk and trusted the driver(pilot) to be not drunk.

What normal person consider is risk to reward ratio, how much he will be benefited for taking that risk.  Even while switching a job you might face unemployment but your new job might pay you more.

And assets like gold are consider safe because of its acceptability by masses and not the technical knowledge required to refine gold ore.

I have written a post on how I introduced my village farmers to bitcoins. My village farmers cant even read their bitcoin paper wallet they only know its valve and risk of investing in it. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5098721.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5098721.0)

I somewhat agree. The thing is, bitcoin is quite easy enough to use if you're decently tech-savvy. The difficulty comes when less tech-savvy people would try to secure their funds with their own wallets, backing up their private keys and such. Those things might be a huge hassle to them; as you know nowadays, people are used to convenience like saving their passwords on their phone's notes app and just simply recovering their password whenever they lose access to their passwords. Account hacked? Easy, press the recover account button! As for crypto, getting your private keys stolen? You're screwed. You can't call a bank to reverse the transactions.

I agree but not entirely.

I have no idea how visa works and I use it everyday.

But to use bitcoin just a few times per month need a lot of knowledge. You need to understand privatekeys/public keys pair concept, how to take care of your funds, etc.

Bitcoin allowed users to finally hold their money without a bank, however that comes with responsibility over your  security.

Also, Bitcoin applications need to evolve a lot more to be easier for daily use.

I do agree with you. I am just afraid that cryptocurrency community has portrayed bitcoin as only for a technical person to use, which I feel is absolutely wrong. For a regular person its like "Dude you will never understand blockchain stay away from it.".
During initial days of internet hackers use to hack email inbox with just modifying the URL with other username, that didn't stop people from using email without technical knowledge. They will be hacked once may be twice then they will know how to save their wallets and  what precaution to take.
I believe let people learn from their mistakes rather than discourage them from beginning.

Yes, how internet browser eased web surfing, Bitcoin applications will do that for bitcoin.
I think daily use of bitcoin is something which is not going to happen very soon, it has some more years.
Till then it will be used for investments and trading, like gold buy it and keep in locker.
I tell who every come to our LIME keep red part (private key) of paper wallet in manpocket and green part (public key) in you front pocket. Most of them are uneducated but they trust us and we keep that trust.

Your analogy is really bad. Let's make it simple. Yes, you don't need technical knowledge to learn how to drive the bus but you can assume that it is safe because the driver has gone into training and when something bad happens to you, you can blame the driver and the company which makes the travel safer than just riding it your own. When you ride the Bitcoin train, you are on your own. When you lost, it's your lost, when you gain, it is your gain. You are on your own, you can't blame anyone but yourself.

Next is gold, is has been around for thousands of years now and has been proven to have a use in our society by the masses. Its real-life usage makes it more appealing to people and investors which is why it is safe to invest in it. Investors are safe because they know how gold works in the market and how it is being used to make our lives easier. Gold is tangible and can be used to create gold jewels or computer parts that make the computer faster for example. Bitcoin is not tangible which makes it less appealing to investors.

It is simple, you use a bank, bank store your money, you get interest per year, and it is safe if you don't touch it. You don't need technical knowledge to know that bank is the way to store your money, and it is easier to do it. You see, safety is what keeps people from using it. Unlike Bitcoin, you need simple computer knowledge like installing, and stuff to make it work (which is hard to get guidance with sometimes). When it comes to investing. Investing in Bitcoin is not a joke, it is not regulated, it is too volatile to even create a slightly accurate prediction, and it is driven by hype from those investors. Not to mention that when you are scammed or hacked, no one can help you but yourself (depending on the amount) and it's hard to trace back the hackers or scammers. Although it still not that safe to invest to, Bitcoin's freedom still makes it appealing to other people.

I'm not trying to make Bitcoin look bad but let's look at the reality first. We need more years of development to actually make Bitcoin appealing to people. Although it's not as safe as other transaction, I still use it because of freedom.

I agree with that, Bitcoin or other Crypto Currencies are not that so easy to use as other people say because you need the knowledge to be able to use it, unlike paper money you only need some basic knowledge to understand it and to protect it. Bitcoin and other forms of Crypto Currencies are digital and it needs computers, smartphones, tablets, and laptops to be able to use and transact with it. I do believe that Crypto Currencies are for people that are literate to new technologies and innovations in our modern society.

Yes we should not scare people. People can learn fast now-a-days.
Cant their be bank alike who will handle Bitcoin same as fiat for people who are less technical, because that's what our next step will be.
Can i just ask will you ever start a Local Independent Micro exchange just for your neighbourhood or community. This will save people from sending their personal information to some offshore exchange with zero liability and people can trust as i trust my bus driver.

I don't completely disagree with you. while about computers and tablets, only 1/3 of world population might has access to internet. So its basically long way to go.

In banking services, or just in any popular technology product in general, all the details are abstracted away from the users, and the users are presented with interface specifically designed to be simple, convenient and foolproof. This isn't the case with Bitcoin - it's relatively low-level because you have to deal with private keys, addresses, backups, seeds, wallet files.

It's really important to understand all of it because there are so many caveats like: malware, fake clients, custodial wallets, address reuse, forks, brain wallets, zero confirmation transactions, cold storage and so on. It's easy to teach people how to send and receive transactions, but lets be honest, it's hard to teach people how to use Bitcoin and not lose their coins in the long run.

I know its not that easy. But why not create services for general public like the banking service you talk about. And for those who want freedom and privacy who are master's of blockchain they can handle on their own. This will ease the burden from Non-technical person and more people can be part of bitcoin ecosystem. This kind of services we are providing in our village not complete banking but we help with creating paper wallets and how to use them.

the community has done no such thing. it is simply human nature that is defiant to accept change. and bitcoin is a new thing which is very different from things people used to use so far. for example so far you gave up control over your money and carried around something like a credit card and everything was handled by the bank but now when you want to use this "different" technology you have to learn new things such as how to make a wallet, what is cold storage, what is fee, ... which makes people afraid of it!

Most people will need to understand the basic concept of Open source projects to trust the Bitcoin software. I find that many people trust the software more, when I explain the concept behind Open source software and what Peer review is.

A lot of people lack the technical knowledge to understand why people should trust software that was written by a anonymous entity. If you say this or that software was developed by Microsoft, people will immediately trust the software more, because it is a big corporation and you have someone to be held accountable if something goes wrong.

We do not need to know the technical detail, because we have loads of people in the world with that knowledge that will scrutinize everything piece of code that are programmed. <Some of them are from our competition and even hackers that are constantly looking for exploits>  ;)   

Yes mostly people think that invest in or adopting bitcoin is need a technical knowledge for me i don't think so experience is important but on technical knowledge is doesn't important if you want to learn the crypto things you have to be motivate to learned from it.

If you ask a lamen to go online, visit coinbase, pass the kyc verification checks, buy bitcoin, then transfer it to a personal wallet, they would probably get to step 2 then give up

It seems to me that people simply do not trust Bitcoin, because this is something relatively new. In addition, it is something non-state, and therefore from this trust even less. If people see the solid, hard base of Bitcoin, see that they can be used, then this fear of obscurity will immediately pass.

I also faced such kind of misunderstanding. Generally people thing that bitcoin is something from the internet and such things asks a computer and for using of the comp you need to have some basic technological knowledge. That's a mistake that people make an elephant from such little thing, but we can change it through explainment and own example.

I think even though technical analysis isn't that accurate it can be helpful is some ways and if people use it well it could really give you a lot of money from trading and investing.

Well, I'm one of these people who things that some technical knowledge is actually required to get into Bitcoin.
Though, the difficulty of that knowledge is often overestimated.

In reality it's not that hard for people to learn how Bitcoin works and how to set up a reasonably secure wallet.
They just tend to think it is, because it's a little bit of a hassle to learn everything.

Compare it to the internet, it's not hard to learn how to use the internet, but it's kind of a hassle to learn about good practices to avoid using the internet in an insecure way.
Just look at most older people, most of them are generally able to use the internet without any issues. Though they usually do so in a way that opens them up for all sorts of scams/malware attacks.

Whenever I teach someone on how to use cryptocurrencies, I always try to explain everything in a way that makes it sound easy for them, but without leaving the important security-related information out.
It can be quite tricky to do so and I've had some people say that they don't want to bother with all of that, but there are some people who gladly take in that information.

In my opinion technical analysis is good for the cryptocurrency enthusiast to become a smart investor and not a hype investor. The basics of technical analysis plus the knowledge of the fundamentals of bitcoin and the blockchain can result to a better investment plan. As what an expert technical analysis always say "To have a plan is not to fail but failing to plan will result to liquidity" I hope I quote it correctly apologies if not!

with bitcoin its not as simple as swiping card or using an ATM. You are your own bank, so you have to know how to keep your fund secure which requires knowledge of private/public key, encryption, hardware wallet and so forth. If you are dealing with small amount may be its not needed but if you're talking about mass adoption which would mean people are using bitcoin and keeping it with them then it would require for them to have technical knowledge. not difficult but requires willingness to change your old pattern. Young generation is more likely to use bitcoin than old one according to a survey, so adoption isn't too far.

technical knowledge is not needed to invest or adopt blockchain. only time you need technical knowledge is if you want to be a trader, then you need to be trained on how to trade. if not you can simply invest in bitcoin and hold

If you are only engaged in trading, yes, it may not be necessary to know the technical features. But when your car is broken, if you can not find a specialist, learning about it in time will help you overcome the difficulty. At least you should know how to recover when you lose your private key and know how to solve such small life-saving problems. And knowing more is better for you.

It's because wallets in general weren't user friendly for the longest time. Just when they became user friendly we started having fee markets and other stuff that's completely unexpected, given Bitcoin's marketing as "a currency".
A lot of non-technical people tried it, got discouraged and left.

Well, one other major difference that makes Bitcoin to be understood by everyone is the fact that it's solely made for digital usages. Bitcoin is very difficult to be used by someone who doesn't utilize the digital medium because from getting Bitcoin to using it fit it's main motive and then withdrawing all needs a little digital knowledge.

You don't have to have some expertise technical knowledge but you have to know at least basics, how it's functioning and what is the background. That is where many make mistakes, they get involved in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies without any knowledge. But it's not that difficult to learn basic information and this is really added value in dealing with cryptocurrencies. World is geetting digital and virtual and without any knowledge about new technologies you can't actualy function ptoperly anymore.

I think in a lot of cases bitcoin is over explained and analised to the
point where new people can be frightened away.
There is a lot of technical information attached to Bitcoin but we
dont need to know it in order to use it.
All we need to know to get started is:

How a coin is created: The very basics of mining
How to buy one: Coinbase, ATM or local bitcoins
How to set up a wallet securely: Start with Electrum for Android
How to spend it: Transfer to another address

As most of the people on this thread, I partially agree. A Bitcoin user needs minimal technical knowledge, buying/earning and spending Bitcoin isn't really something that requires much technical knowledge. But the part where I dissagree are more complex parts of the cryptocurrency world, like mining, working or learning about the blockchain.

I do not think any technical knowledge is needed when questioning work with bitcoin, but when it comes to mining, blockchain then you have to have technical knowledge and good technical skills.
Every man can handle basic things like buying and selling, everything is the same as with bitcoin.

If you want invest then you will need to know the basic technical knowledge because you need to know how bitcoin work and what is the potential that can be used with bitcoin, if you want to used bitcoin you don't need the technical knowledge, but still it's better to have some basic technical knowledge, who knows you can build something better for bitcoin

Technically knowledge is important thing in all aspect of investment to avoid lot of loses, bitcoin is easy to use and handle if they know it's works as decentralized volatile cryptocurrency.
Do not compare the art between the new system technology because art is talent using by imagination gift from god of selected people.

Agreed. Base things for using Bitcoin is knowing how to use Bitcoin wallet, and keeping private  keys secure. You don't have to care for how something works.

when you get your credit card and gain the "knowledge" that you shouldn't put it close to a magnetic field, you shouldn't bend it, break it,... or it becomes useless, and dozen other things, or when you open your paypal account and they tell you not to lose your password, use a strong one, how to deal with charge back,... do you call those "technical knowledge" or common sense?
that is the same with bitcoin as a regular user. you don't need ANY "technical knowledge" whatsoever to use it. you just have to learn a bunch of basics such as how to use a wallet!

You really do not need to learn everything to invest in bitcoin, just make sure that you know to safe guard the coins and store in a wallet that you own the private key and learn the basic on how to secure your device.

It is a new financial system which is less than ten years old, the reason for non technical people to find it difficult is that there is a lack of user friendly devices that can help you store your coins and that is the biggest drawback, if there is a simple user friendly device that can be accessed by any granny then you will see more people using cryptos.


The risk reward ratio is huge in this aspect, a person who does not know to safe guard his system always think about the risk of loosing everything rather than the gains, because it is his hard earned money and no one will invest just to assess the risk reward.

Gold is a metal and has physical properties which can be owned and you do not need the knowledge to refine gold ore to own one but that is not the case with digital goods, you need to know how to safe guard it as it can be transmitted digitally if you are connected online.

The reason why cryptoneir believed people need some technical knowledge before they invest into bitcoin is because they will understand the in depth of the market, the coins they can invest in and know the necessary steps to take in other to avoid losses. However, the market is not doing good the knowledge will put ones through.

I dont think we should have knowledge about technical or blockchain to invest in bitcoin. Bitcoin is like commodity or investment, if we think its profitable in the future and can secure our asset value, i am believe people without proper knowledge about blockchain can invest.

I find OPs point right about using and investing in bitcoin. You can do it without the technical knowledge and just the fundamental concept but when it comes to investment, bitcoin can be your dream asset or worst one. Depending on the current situation and an analysis is needed to know what to do. People are afraid of investment because they don't have the technical skills needed to asses what to do when something is failed.

There is a thing called UX design, a bridge that connects the software and the user. I believe cryptocurrencies haven't reached the point whereas the user able to easily interact with Bitcoin in general. In technologies spaces those things is essential because it will matter how the user could easily understand it without too much technical knowledge.