Bitcoin Forum

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=64578 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=64578) shows that forum users here are mostly younger people. What will it take to get Baby Boomers to learn to appreciate how Bitcoin can benefit them?

You likely don't.  However most Boomers will be dead within 20 years which is how long I think it will take Bitcoin to become as mainstream as Paypal, twitter, or ebay.

I'm in luck, for I was born in 1960, one of the last years to be considered a boomer.

~Bruno~

I don't understand. Those examples were nearly overnight successes. Why won't Bitcoin go viral as well?

It's not as easy and safe to use just yet.

None of those were mainstream overnight.  Lots of Boomers now use facebook, ebay, paypal now but those "technologies" are a decade old. Even facebook isn't revolutionary.  It is 8 years old but the road was paved with myspace and before that geocities and other failed social sites.  

Bitcoin is like alpha version of geocities circa 1990 right now.  Worse it involves not social networking but money.  I may be wrong but people who think Bitcoin will be adopted by the masses are likely a decade or two early.  If you want to make a difference convince teenagers they want to use Bitcoin because by the time Bitcoin hits mainstream they will be prime spending (and voting) demographic.

twenty years!?!?

paypal took about five

Wouldn't it be awesome to have a round table discussion with all teens or people in their very early twenties brainstorming to the nth degree after being presented Bitcoin for the very first time at the onset of the dialog?

What would it take to make this event happen? Also, would need to be recorded for prosperity.

~Bruno~

Like a focus group?

Most Baby Boomers have no reason to like Bitcoins. They spent their entire lives paying taxes, they are or are currently paying out huge college loans for their children and now they are ready to collect their social security.

They've served the system and they are not getting the time served back. They have no reason to want a change nor see a change in our monetary system. They just want their government entitlements and their retirement to pay out.

A monetary revolution gives no benefit towards that end. They don't want Bitcoins. They want you young people to get back to work so, again, their social security can pay out.

They depend on the system and nothing short of total collapse is going to break that dependence.

Bitcoins are for young people born into a society turned against them. The old have already had their spirits broken.

I would drop some coins towards that.  I would imagine developers would find that kind of information useful.

Getting perspective from completely new potential users.

I think the most useful method would be to pool BTC from people to hire an advertising or marketing firm and get professional help. I'm no expert on either of those fields and even I can see that most of the methods that people are trying here on this forum are doomed or worse (i.e. making people think LESS of bitcoin). People are simply trying to do stuff that is outside of their wheelhouse.

I think we could use a viral marketing scheme in which a vital part would be sending a few bitcoins to some good cause sort of like a Bitcoin Kony type of a rallying call for young people on youtube or something. Right now we're a perceived as this fringe bunch doing something weird most people don't even know how to begin to wrap their heads around. But if suddenly none of that mattered and it only mattered that they needed an account on an exchange and buy say 0.5BTC to send to some viral video or something it could really take a hold, especially if it was more like a trend instead of useful tool..

For example a viral video about this site if we could convince them to switch to Bitcoin: http://www.kiva.org/about  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpSNM625LFU

EDIT: Hmmm maybe not, this is in their FAQ(http://na3.salesforce.com/sol/public/solutionbrowser.jsp?cid=02n50000000DWzh&orgId=00D500000006svl):

Every BabyBoomer should hold some coins.

Must be the new math! Is 25% the new most?


Did somebody break into my spirits cabinet?


http://media.pressherald.com/images/300*489/hg.homebar.jpg

I'm working on such a scheme, where nobody will have to join an exchange to acquire coins--bitviews.com. BitViews will be loosely based on hitviews.com's business plan, but everybody will be able to join with very few hurdles to jump. Everybody gets paid BTC once a week, unless the user stipulates otherwise. Advertisers can pay for spots with either Bitcoin or fiat, and their rates will be lower than most other placements. That's why I desire NaNa as the spokesperson, for if she can profit from it, anybody can.

~Bruno~

I would like to see your source on the life expectancy of baby boomers. A more realistic figure for the average life expectancy of a baby boomer is 30 years. That also means that a significant portion of the baby boomers will live well past age 80.

As to why a baby boomer should hold Bitcoin. Very simple. Holding a small portion of their retirement savings say even under 1% in Bitcoin can mean the difference between a comfortable retirement and retiring in poverty particularly should the stock market drop significantly.

By the way I am a baby boomer
I am not planning my retirement on the basis of dying in the next 20 years
I do hold Bitcoin

... and by the way I also backed up my wallet.dat among other places on a 5.25in floppy disk. A technology that was obsolete before most of the members of this forum were born!

Well, I got mine on an 8" floppy disc, Sonny. Seriously, there currently are about 65 million of us boomers still around. Imagine only a fraction of them converting 1% of their savings into Bitcoin. The way I figure it, that'll be the ultimate hedge against inflation. Fuck gold! $1,700 worth of gold today, buys you $1,700 worth of stuff. Twenty years from now, if gold is at $5,000/oz, you'll be able to buy...wait for it...$5,000 worth of the exact same stuff.

http://oldcomputers.net/pics/floppy8.gif

~Bruno~

Floppies? It wasn't profitable to run the devices to access them. USB is more efficient. If Bitcoin has done anything to you, if forces you to budget your electricity usage.

Budgeting and gauging electricity usage is certainly helpful to the boomers. I think it should be integrated in every retirement plan to have AT LEAST 1GH/s running.

Bitcoins on an 8in floppy. Cool. I suspect most baby boomers will not invest 1% of their savings in Bitcoin, but those that do could very well end up living a long comfortable retirement.  They may also outlive some obese 20 year old that has a heart attack at age 40.

Let's do the math! Baby Boomers have, on average, a retirement savings of $88,000. 1% of that is $880. There are approximately 65,000,000 Baby Boomers. 1/10,000 of that number gives us 6,500 Boomers. $880 X 6,500 = $5,720,000. The current exchange rate is 1 BTC/$4.80 USD Therefore, $5,720,000 equates to 1,191,666.67 BTC, or about 15% of all coins currently in circulation.

Granted, as more and more Boomers lock in $880 worth of bitcoins, the price for coins will inevitably start climbing, thus allowing the early Boomers who purchase more leverage.

I think this can be explained to a Baby Boomer a lot easier than one of those damn gold prospectuses.

Here's what I would do. Place a one page Bitcoin Prospectus and a glossy, multi-paged Gold Prospectus in front of a Baby Boomer. If the Bitcoin Prospectus is written well and read first, the Baby Boomer should go with that option without even flipping a page of the Gold Prospectus. To hedge your bet that this will happen, have an image of a model on the cover of the one page Bitcoin Prospectus, and an image of Ben Bernanke on the cover of the Gold Prospectus.

~Bruno~

What are bullet points benefits of Bitcoins for BabyBoomers ?

• Way to diversify thus protect their investment savings
• Cool factor : Look I have bitcoins, I'm in on those new technology stuffs.
• A safe way to get tokens for online games ? (thinking, classic card games where wining earn you tokens)
• ...

They are well aware of how much their money has devaluated over the decades. Unlike bitcoin...

Only needs a minimum investment, say $1,000 USD total. Extreme worse case scenario, we lose it all. I spend twice that amount to go on a yearly two week fishing trip to catch a few dozen fish so that I can release them back into the lake. (I wonder if I could tag them with QR-Codes?).

~Bruno~

>only $88,000 in savings on average

It's amazing what inflation does.

No bond is risk-free.  Precious metals make poor currency.  The dollar is headed for major difficulties.  Wall St. is a casino where the house bets against you.

That should be enough to put 1% of your savings in Bitcoin.

Sadly inflation makes that number much larger.  Strip out the effect of inflation and you likely are talking about $30K in 1970s dollars or $1K a year.  Some of that is gains so maybe $500 in 1970s dollars saved a year. 

WTF were the Boomers thinking?  I won't feel comfortable until my Roth IRA & 401Ks have $1M (in 1995 dollars).  $88K? 

Would it make sense to start a Bitcoin investment club? Boomers understand investment clubs. Inviting a group of friends to invest in Bitcoin might be interesting. Besides just investing in Bitcoin, GLBSE and other Bitcoin startups might be interesting investments for small groups.

try RFID instead

Put the Bitcoin logo on everything they will use or need, from Depends to pill bottle caps, belt buckles to wrist cuffs, broaches to hatpins, coffee cans to scotch bottles, pillow cases to bedsheets.

...walkers, wheelchairs, crutches, Bingo cards,...

Aw c'mon. This is morbid but I get the idea. Howabout creating physical Bitcoin documents that can be willed to posterity? They would be good investments for future generations.

I might even be able to hook you up with some, for a premium.

Interesting! More and more Boomers are visiting cemeteries, so why not place relative information about Bitcoin there? You could even pick some mundane grave with a message to their still living loved ones (or even a stranger) stating that bitcoins (bitcents) await you at this site. Once on the ad-based landing page, they'll be simple instructions on how they can retrieve their new found wealth from uncle Joe. There's even a new word that could be coined for the experience--gravecaching.

http://www.usgwarchives.org/mi/hillsdale/photos/tombstones/rice/brown16927nph.jpg

Damn it! I wrote this kinda tongue-in-cheek, but with enough seriousness to make it viable. But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. gravecaching.com has a lot of ingredients in it to make it worthwhile: it can easily be monetized; there's history (old grave sites); ghosts; Boomers visit old grave site; teens visit to make out; other adults treasure hunt; etc. The site would bring awareness to old grave sites that are in dire need of attention. There'll be no need to bury or hide anything, for a simple stake behind a stone, thereby not seen from the road, would suffice.

Consider reading the follow article: http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/archives/52303/


~Bruno~

Did boomers listen to Phinnaeus Gage when he posted this on March 21, 2012? If they did $880 would have been 183 BTC during that post which is now worth $82,802 (Assuming they went into a coma after spending $880) today. If they paid attention, that would be more or less $219,600 in 2013.

Do we have better materials now to present to Boomers?

I think it is only possible when Xapo's or other e-wallet companies' debit cards. Cryptocurrency system needs a full spending chain to babyboomers get involved.

In my opinion, we need to focus younger generations like X's, Y's or millennials because they are the future and cryptocurrencies are the money of future. :)

The reality is that Boomers aren't really subject to change or take a chance that much.  I'm sure if you presented the same person that Phinnaeus Gage presented this too (if he actually did), then the person will probably feel discouraged to go into bitcoin, because that $880 that a boomer could have invested will only get the person less than 2 BTC, rather than getting the 183 BTC they could have gotten.

I don't think Boomers are going to look at Bitcoin as currency, just merely a speculative stock that they can't or won't want to learn about.  When you present them with gold, they can at least wrap their minds around why it would be beneficial to them to invest there, because it's way less volatile/risky.

I've tried to influence my parents and other family that are on the older side to buy into bitcoin around this time, and they just merely laughed and scoffed at me.  They are just looking forward to collecting their social security checks and living happily ever after.  So I just kind of stopped trying to attempt to explain my view point, and just worry about my self now.