Bitcoin Forum

I have very hard time trying convincing my dad to put some money into Bitcoins. The biggest issue so far is my ignorance.  ;D Basically, all i need is an answer to a question- where is the value in bitcoin?

If any off my friends and family say that they are interested in getting into Bitcoin I will tell them, that there is great potential for the currency to go to either $10 or $10,000. Both are likely in the next 10 years. Invest if you would like to, but understand the risks. If they want more details I will tell them how, where, why what and most importantly how to not loose any Bitcoins you purchase.

Never push people into making an investment that they don't want to make. Even good investments look bad at some point and they will become the person who buys at $1000 watches it rise to $2000, then crash to $400 then they will sell at $400 and constantly blame you.

Why not secretly set aside some BTC for your family.  Later, if they are interested but feel like they missed the boat you can reveal the coins and sell them to your family members at the price you paid originally.  This will give them the illusion of being early adopters which could help sustain their interest.

This is not ideal as, on these secret coins, you must be willing to take the risk of a crash without the reward of a rally.  However, if you are not happy about this then you probably shouldn't be pushing your family into investing.

I personally stay away from "Advising" family members to buy into investments. You don't wanna get into that territory if things don't turn out well. Instead i provide them with "consultation" and leave them to decide on their own.

The only people i advise for investments are those who pay me for it.

I just showed my dad how much my initial investment made over a few months. He was sold right there. He's about to take out a loan (s'ok, monthly rate is so low he can't feel it) to buy more coins while they are still cheap. He knows nothing of computers and little of economics, but he can see where this is going.

Ultimately I believe it is up to the person. Some people won't be convinced no matter what, others need a bit of a push, and some can see it just by looking at it.

Yeah, when it comes to money, you have to be careful.  Nothing would be worse then to advise your family to save a lot of money in BTC and then have it completely fail and you be the cause of their financial loss.

Don't try to convince your family of anything.  But you could ask your father, where is the value in US Dollars?  His understanding of that factoid should be instructive for both of you.

I recommend not advising family members to buy bitcoin
Educating them about it is fine but bitcoin may go to 0
Do you want to be responsible for that?
It may very well go up but it may not.

If you really want to get them to invest first read this entire thread
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=341594.0

Make sure you understand all the arguments presented
and fully grasp the risks involved.

I've told people about it.  I've even told people at work that I plan on retiring next year.  Boy are they going to be surprised when I actually do it.

So far, I've only gotten one person to invest at work.  And he got super lucky investing at $70 after the $266 crash.  So he's doing very well on his coins.  (He only threw $1000 in, but that's about $15,000 now.)  I know that the rest haven't invested because I sent them referral links on Coinbase and it shows me whether they have bought at least 1 bitcoin (for my free $5), so I know none of them have.

We've also advised a few people at our church, specifically ones that have asked us about investment advice.  Even out of all of those, only 1 person has invested, and mostly against the advice of her husband (they were separated for a while and each have their own separate accounts right now, so she doesn't care what he thinks).  He's been a stock trader and real estate investor for many years, so he just can't see it not as a stock and he thinks it's going to crash any second, because "the price is too high".

Somewhat surprisingly, my brother (who was recently bankrupt) got in at $311 for a few coins.  I really didn't expect him to invest, but he went to the ATM and handed me cash and said "buy some for me".  He trusts me I guess.

You can't make them value it, so don't bother trying.
This might change in the future, so you can help them out if they do get interested.
I also like the idea of buying a coin for them without telling them.

In its utility. It can be used for trustless escrow. Trustless money transfer. Trustless trusts (lol). It can be used for moving money fluidly between political jurisdictions. It can be used for storing wealth in such a manner that it can not be confiscated. It can be used for moving wealth in such a manner that it can not be confiscated (i.e. avoiding this situation http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/04/ton-gold-bullion-hidden-car-switzerland-border_n_3017140.html) Man this list can go on and on.

I agree with this.  You can talk about bitcoin and if their interest is sparked, then show them how to buy, but advising them is dangerous territory.  If bitcoin crashes to $1, I will have lost my money and I will have to take it like a man.  I wouldn't be able to handle losing other peoples money.  Maybe that's why I'm not a banker!

Don't try to convince your family of anything.

But, on paper wrote 28.11.2013 10.000$= 10BTC,

and everxy month show it to your's family

28.12.2013. 10BTC= 14.000$ ( i hope ;) )

28.01.2014. 10BTC= XX.000$

28.02.2014. 10btc= XX.000$ ( maybe triple XXX ;) )

I have tried many approaches, what is working best is tell them the basics, then ask them to create a wallet (Android or blockchain.info), then move a small sum into it.

RESPECT. I'm taking that on board starting now!

I don't advise my family to buy bitcoin; but i do confront them with my profit... :D

dont try to convice anybody. take your own money and take your own risks. thats the best you can do for the future.

But what if you advise it completely wrong? Then you don't want to be in that situation as well right?

I had an idea to buy my parents a few bitcoins rigjt after 266 bubble. In the same time I wanted to try out a new exchange aside of mt.gox. So I sent about 400 eur to btc-24 exchange. Well, you know what happened next. :) I am happy I haven't convinced them and lost my own money instead of theirs... ;)

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what I did? bought some casascius coins and gave them to family. no need to convince, they can watch online price action and it's pretty convincing in itself.