Bitcoin Forum

A non-Bitcoiner friend asked me, "What is Bitcoin?", I was unable to answer directly as my mind was racing to find an answer. My first instinct was to tell him that it was a "peer to peer digital ecash for the internet", but should something global, trustless, provably scarce, independent, open, and censorship-resistant be described as something so shallow?

Bitcoin is much more, but it's very hard to find the words to describe it.

If you are actually intending to explain it to a newbie, it is better to just give them a simple and short definition of bitcoin which is a digital currency. Then explain it's convenience. Do not explain the whole scope of bitcoin, trust me I have been into crypto for 5 years and I still find it boring to hear technical and deep conversations about crypto. LOL!

Lack of education is making it harder to define mate, and if a person got an adequate idea from bitcoin on how it changes lives from scratch to wealth; I guess describing it would be easy. When there's a friend that would like to ask me about what's with bitcoin, then I simply can tell him/her to just try to view my facebook posts and take a review last two years ago.
Definitely after that, they'll do me some private messages saying how did you do that? The answer behind it was because of bitcoin. Money can define how bitcoin is, and it was just like a kind of number can be appreciated through internet. Without the power of Internet connection, we can't make money through bitcoin and everything goes smooth because of it. Bitcoin brought me up from proverty towards having property as well, and changes the way of life I had.

I have been asked the same thing several times before and what is my answer? I just tell them that bitcoin is a way to earn money in the internet. I answer like that because I believe that most people will be interested to learn more about something which is related to "earning money". Once they are interested then I will tell them more about it, my main idea is to attract them to learn about bitcoin. So we should have an attractive answer to make them curious about it.

The problem is that the average person has no real-life experience with blockchain technology, so the words used to describe it make no sense. I might say, "Bitcoin is a decentralized cryptocurrency based on blockchain technology or a distributed ledger," but that would probably lead to confusion over the terms used. This is where it might take some patience and simple analogies to get the message across.

Whatever that's seem new in term of technology, to me seem very difficult to define because of the technology developing phase. Believe me that some terms are still coming in even though the technology has spent 10 years. In few years fro now, this technology (Bitcoin) will not be difficult to define even to the illiterates around us.

Have tried explained Bitcoin to my wife, but the harder i tried the difficult she find it to comprehend. Since she has be doing some personal research on her own, its pretty good to know that she is doing well at the moment.

To define what bitcoin is may be some time difficult most especially when you are trying to define it to a newbie, but in simplest form you can say bitcoin is a digital currency that is not controlled by any individual or institution and decentralized which is send in a peer to peer method of transactions without third party involvement, and the blockchain is the digital bitcoin bank because it runs on it.

i think you may be too hard on yourself. i would easily tell them that it is a new form of money and if they needed more explanation then i would go into more details as what it is and how it works, what decentralization means,... and things like that. but generally it depends on the person asking, sometimes to explain more means making it harder for some people to grasp it.

It's really hard to define one thing if the complex things come rushing into your mind first and completely forgetting about the simpler terms which are easier to comprehend by laymen. This has been discussed for plenty of times in this forum and there doesn't seem to be one universal definition in which bitcoin would fit. Anyways, here's my take:

Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer digital currency that can either be an investment (for profits) or be used as a form of payment if someone would be willing to accept it.

I have been related scenario of what has OP said, but this is what I told to my friend that "digital money which can use peer to peer transactions on the internet and we can also make a profit in buying low and sell high price". In that way of explaining the might get tempted if they are interested. Majority of them who asked was now a crypto enthusiast and doing trading as well. There are too many ways you to answer them and depends upon on how you approach and must explain to them the possible risk to avoid for you to blame if they get failed on investing, but so far none of them.

It really is hard to define in an easy to understand and exciting enough manner. I think the problem is that you cannot define it in the same way for everyone.

There are different facets to bitcoin that a person will find interesting depending on his/ her background, education and intention. I'll attempt a few examples:

1. If its a tech-savvy person, you can just tell them that it is  "Money generated by a combination of mathematics, cryptography and internet".
2. If its a financially-literate, business-minded guy, you can say its "Border less and regulation-free method for raising and storing capital"
3. If its a professional from a different field (Lawyer, doctor, teacher), you can tell them its "The limited edition version of new money that only the most tech-savvy, internet people can access and that they shouldn't miss out".
4. If its your grandmother, maybe then "It is the one investment to recession-proof your pension and legacy (show her the physical coins)".

What more can you add?

It is true. Bitcoin is hard to explain but easy to understand when you show it how to do it and how to use it. Like in lesson in school when your teacher teach about every problem procedure it is hard to understand but when you apply it in actual activity you can understand easily and you can perform it well. Likewise in bitcoin you can easily understand it when you try to invest on it rather than reading articles about bitcoin.

Exactly but since my friends of mine are not really into technical stuff and even I told them the technical term of Bitcoin they still won't understand it but to explain it in a simple way I always tell to them that "It's an online money that's volatile because it's price is defined by the buyers and also depends into demands and supply of it" from this they have an idea what a bitcoin is but yes... it's much more. Anonymity, mode of transaction, investment, trading... it's flexible for what i'm seeing it's really a complicated stuff that a non technical or semi technical persons won't easily understand.

I know its little bit hard to explain about bitcoin to nebiwe whoever not yet involved with it. Although your explanation is correct but they will not understand by this way. Short answer should be, bitcoin is a virtual currency. Then step by step you have to explain how it is work. I answer like this if someone ask me. If you can explain that how it would be convert in real money then they will interested on bitcoin. Otherwise newbie will not believe on it.

I can add this for people of all ages: Basically, if you need to pay without the government noticing your transactions in an anonymous manner, Bitcoin is your solution which is an alternate currency to FIAT, credit cards, Paypal etc.

If financial anonymity is your concern, Bitcoin is what you need.

Because besides the technical specifications behind it, bitcoin is pretty much fundamentally different for each person. Bitcoin might be a currency for Bob in the Philippines, whereas bitcoin might be a store-of-value of Mike in Venezuela, or maybe both for some people on other countries.

I personally have this problem too. I have so much different definitions of bitcoin on my mind that I really don't know which one to say when someone asks me about it. LOL. Not to mention the number of different definitions increases more and more as I learn more about bitcoin. One thing's for sure though, I never describe bitcoin as an investment, as people shouldn't be doing in the first place.

I think it will be simple to tell newcomers that bitcoin is a type of money that is used online or over the internet and it has a limited supply unlike the dollar and that it doesn't exist as a tangible substance, also that it rises and fall in the market.

if I get a question like you. I will answer, if bitcoin is one of the blockchain-based digital currencies that we can use for investment and trade. and we can use it to transact if there are sellers who accept crypto currencies. and I will introduce crypto currencies so that your friends will get to know all crypto currencies.

You should answer that bitcoin is an asset in the form of a currency that is on a peer to peer basis that you have said yeah, IMO the short definition that bitcoin is an investment like oil but not real in the very rare sense but even though not real bitcoin is very beneficial and has high popularity. There is also something you have to say that bitcoin is easier to used well you should be able to answer it.

I was a "Non-bitcoiner" before  :'(, and I often ask my friend who's into bitcoin about it. ???
Every time he tries to explain it to me I would  feel like a grandma who ask my grandson about the internet. ??

It seem so clear to him what he is explaining  but every term he uses confuses me and make me jump from one
idea to another. I'm not that stupid either, I even consider my self to be  knowledgeable about technology.

But when I really invested in knowing what bitcoin is all about I was like "Well that was that.. Okk soo it all make sense to me now~"

Its nature of being abstract does not help on constructing it in your thoughts  and followed by technical terms to define and support the main definition well that's one way to confuse someone  ;D ;D

Bitcoin is a new way for people to make money, it is available on the internet for now, but in another country, it is available in our real life. So you can pay your expenses in monthly using bitcoin, you can have a new investment type besides gold, you can make more money from bitcoin by trading.
I think you can try to explain that, so I think it will make them curious and want to know more. Then you can try to explain a bit of detail about bitcoin and ask them to search on the internet. You don't have to explain about peer-to-peer or blockchain technology because that will too complicated to them. Just explain the simple explanation, and I hope that they can understand and want to use google to help them.

You should not define bitcoin to a newbie in one go. They will be overwhelmed with the information that you will be feeding them. It is better to just describe it in the simplest word you can but enough to arouse curiousity. If he gets interested enough, he will research it on his own.

I don't think the problem is defining Bitcoin to people who are not familiar with it, the real problem here is not by defining what BTC is but to find the most effective answer that will make them convinced about Bitcoin, the real question is how can we define BTC to these non-bitcoiners without making them doubt and convincing them that BTC is real.

I agree. People arround us that does not have an idea about Bitcoin or cryptocurrency in general will find themselves hard to understand the terms used most especially in technical terms. In my case I just told my friends and relatives that Bitcoin is a new form of money online that can be used as a payment method or investment purposes. For me it doesn't matter on how I explain to them but if they are really interested with Bitcoin I know that they will find an answer for themselves because google is always there to help them.

That old magic internet money. I get your point. Certainly when explaining it to a new person

Recently I read an article about bitcoin in medium and the tittle of article is You don't understand bitcoin because you think money is real you can read article fully on medium. I think that is the interesting article and we can have an imagine hos to discribe about bitcoin to other people easily. As you may know, the currency always real from time to time (including barter) this thing that makes we have a difficult way to discribe about bitcoin as we assume bitcoin is money. Because a new person who just know bitcoin will be difficult to understand how bitcoin works and what bitcoin is because of they can't hold it.

it is difficult to explain to laymen about virtual money, even many consider bitcoin as the latest gambling on the internet.

If you really aren't stupid(lol), it's simply most likely because your friend is simply not explaining it well for a non-technical person. When explaining online, we frequently throw words like "decentralized", "peer-to-peer", "open source", and the like, not taking into consideration the person listening might not even know what these words exactly mean. Hence I frequently use the statement "transacting with bitcoin doesn't need a mediator company"; because based on experience, people tend to understand it better that way.

When my friend introduced bitcoin to me, it was truly hard to believe. This is all because of its virtual presence without a physical state. The same thing will happen with each and every common man who has been using fiat throughout his life. Now e-wallets have helped with the digital service for the same fiat, so through some technical difficulties it can be explained according to the effort taken.

When ever someone ask me that question I would just tell them that it is a crypto currency,
And if they ask about the value I would just simple say that the value depends on the demand it is just like a stock market the people are responsible for the price it depend on the stock and demand.

Your style is a good entry point to gain interest in the bitcoin
I suggest you talk to them about financial freedom, low cost of financial transactions as well as disposal of bank control.

It's hard to define when you're talking with someone who doesn't use a smartphone at all. Or someone who has a computer but uses it only to check social media and google things.

If you're talking to a young person who uses electronics every day you should tell them that bitcoin is electronic money that allows you to make fast and cheap payments everywhere in the world but doesn't depend on central authority like fiat money.

I don't think that it is hard to define just tell them that it is like gold or stocks the only difference is it is on the internet and it is decentralized.
And the small piece of it is called Satoshi or Bits.

hahaha you are right, id we said bitcoin is the digital currency, i think its not wrong, but its not correct 100%. we need to define bitcoin with their system on it, like the blockchains system that used on bitcoin network, the decentralized system. we should define it all ahhahahaS

Since I don't live in the US, the first thing I tell people is to try to think of it as a dollar. You can hold and exchange it later or you can use it to pay directly if someone is willing to accept it without conversion. Usually enough for them to realize it's really not much different from the cash in their wallets.

I rarely talk about the blockchain to anyone unless they seem curious enough since it tend to confuse people.

bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency, where you can send money anywhere in the world with low commissions or also buy products ... then it is already explained other things if possible (such as investment, trading or ways to earn money)

it only seems hard because we haven't had to do it that often. how many times does someone ask you what bitcoin is? if you explain it a couple of times then it will become easier. besides it is usually harder to explain things that we understand ourselves and have never had to explain them. for example if someone asks you "what is a bank", "what is starbucks",... you will have the same hard time coming up with some explanation.

You don't need to describe about bitcoin or give any definition since its hard for newbie to understand bitcoin. All you have to do is tell him that its a digital currency. More you go deep more than chances he don't understand. Ask him to try bitcoin himself it can help him to understand proper about bitcoin

It is hard to define because its a sophisticated technology, but you can explain about it as simple as possible, you can just said it's a digital currency that don't need a third party, it could give people freedom to used, there are many ways to describe bitcoin, and it's easier to explain when you give them the example in practical

Well it's really hard to explain especially for people who are not technically inclined. I would just say it's  "digital money", simply as that.

But it gets more complicated if he/she started to questions more about it and that where the problem arises. You can throw a lot of words that doesn't ring a bell to them. That's why it's better to have a sit down talk with that person so that he can truly understand why bitcoin is.

yes its really hard to describe but when someone ask me about bitcoin
i dont explain it i just simple answer its a currency

Just give a definition of bitcoin, and give an explanation of the advantages of bitcoin compared to fiat they will certainly understand your point.

That was true. Actually, I was kinda tired of explaining to them what really is bitcoin. Even if I express in a simplest and nicest way, they are really confused about it. But one time I just said that it can be used as an online payments and can also be possible to become an investment then they said, "Oh, I get it."
See? If they are an open minded person, they'll probably understand.

I simply tell them it's money that don't have any physical form, that they'll onlybever hold them in a digital wallet. After I tell them how it can be spent and stuff, they'd usually be cool bout it. Of course I can also tell them they don't actually "own" the bitcoin, that it's all ledger and stuff but that would just get complicated. They'd be able to use it without knowing all those.

Depending on our level of understanding, for me every time I have a friend who ask me about bitcoin, I would tell it's a currency or online payment system rather than an investment. It would be easier for them to understand if we will use a common terms, the difference from other online system is that bitcoin is decentralized and that makes it unique and transparent, so far, I explained it well and they just do the rest of the research.

Don't explain bitcoin on a difficult way to understand, try to explain it in a simple way, like, bitcoin is a digital currency that we can use online like buying kinds of stuff or paying online bills, or simply say, it is already one of our currencies now like fiat the difference between the two is that, bitcoin can only be used online while fiat is used for physical stores.

True, be a teacher and know your student, it's easy to educate them if you know them.
Bitcoin is complicated to some, especially those who sees it a wrong way, like they see it as an investment rather than a cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin is hard to define because of its diversity, it is hard to just say it as a peer to peer payment, it has showed a deep root to block chain technology and hyper ledger.
So e pray bitcoin as a life saver, some as technology revolution while some who hate government and wanna topple the economic tradition.
In short everyone has its own definition.

Most of the people are confused with Bitcoin and use it as a long-term investment which will give them profits with time, they forget the part that its a crypto-currency which can be used just like other currencies.

If other people see it as an investment than a curency , i think those people are already aware with a crypto and there is no point of teaching them  . explaining them that crypto should be primary used a currency and not as investment will only make the situation worst because they will only argue on what you are trying to explain  .  me , i dont teach people around me but ill only wait if they will ask me something about bitcoin and crypto . thats the time that ill teach them in a non technical way  .

I also struggled with the same problem in the beginning and I totally over complicated the issue when I tried to explain it to people. I then took some time to re-think my strategy and decided to make it as simple as can be.

I now start by telling people that it is a alternative payment option, but that is so much better than other payment methods, because it is not centralized. That provoke the normal reaction that I want, which is the most logical question.... Why is it better? I then start by going into the details and differences.  8)

Yeah right after you explain it to them for almost an hour they will just ignore it because in real they really dont understand what we are talking about.

Is there anyone who can define Bitcoin?  :o For newcomer and seasoned player as well "Bitcoin is the cryptocurrency" or in an elaborated way "Peer-to-peer electronic cash for internet" but more than that if someone wants to define Bitcoin then it will be a book itself because rather just knowing, it is important to understand the extinguishing concept behind Bitcoin and its working functionality. :)

It is indeed very difficult to explain because it is not in the form of an object so it is also difficult to believe for those who ask questions and often say gambling. If I am asked like that, I only answer that bitcoin is the same as shares. We must also be able to choose a reasonable answer not the original answer.

Every user has got the same though about explaining bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. If an object can be felt physically it is easy to explain while same is not possible with cryptocurrency. The virtual presence is quite hard to define as it will be entirely a new thing for the common people to believe. Probably people will soon get to know about it as the change keeps going with more people have begun to spend time on learning it.

I've explained bitcoin to many people and they usually have a hard time trying to understand how bitcoins are generated with math and electricity.  People assume it is easy money to mine bitcoins without knowing how massive the hashrate  of the network is.

it is exactly because of this reason that whenever someone asks me about how bitcoin is "generated" and generally about technical stuff, i refuse to answer them and instead ask them to tell me how other things they use daily work. for example i ask them how an ATM machine encrypts the communication with the bank and how it reads the data from the cards,...
people are usually weird only when it comes to bitcoin just because it is new. we have to tell them that they don't have to know the technical details to use bitcoin just like they don't know how 90% of things they use every day work and still they enjoy using them.

It could have be done by that; but many will ask further questions if your explanation to Bitcoin is not elaborated. A colleague of mine had one time asked me to explain in details the true definition of Bitcoin, and i basically told her that, Bitcoin is a technology, payment method, currency. .... but she never understood until she bought some Books about Bitcoin.

Explaining with its all features and the problems causing by the centralized government also need to explained because the problem will be there in the government not in the bitcoin side. If you tell to any person you are using bitcoin and earning in this field means no one will be understand you that you doing in legit way as well.

in three words: magic internet money 8)

the unfortunate truth is the concepts underlying bitcoin are complex and can only be dumbed down so much. i often begin by explaining that bitcoin is math-based money. it's secured by cryptography and regulated by an economic design bound by code which means it eliminates all the trust-based failures in banking and government-issued money. then we can delve into the "hard money" aspects of bitcoin based on its scarce commodity-like nature.....

First and foremost, Bitcoin is not hard to define. Bitcoin is an alternative form of fiat which is a digital currency that operates on a decentralized peer to peer system  known as the blockchain network. The reason why people find it difficult in either defining or explaining what bitcoin is for people to understand is due to the fact that most people define bitcoin in a form of comparing its system to that of the bank. Just tell people that bitcoin is an alternative form of cash with no limitation when making transactions with it.  

I'd like to call it the People's Currency or Community Owned Currency. This would make more sense to people you are trying to explain it to. And they will most likely relate with it more

Explaining the technical terms (like decentralized, immutable, uncensorable and deflationary  currency) should follow when they need more information or aak for the advantages of Bitcoin

I like the term 'people's currency' because that's what Bitcoin actually is. The term 'community owned currency' is something that refers to a smaller group of people, or even a cult.

Spot on. New crypto participant's main incentive for entering is related to the price anyway, so the last thing they are interested in at that stage is people throwing around with terms they never heard of or thought to care about.

Keeping it simple does the trick. Lets be honest here, we all have been a newbie at one point, and we surely couldn't care less about the technicals as long as the price kept pumping.

Your first answer would really be enough and that 2nd thought is just a common opinion afterwards of people who do know exactly on what is bitcoin.
For people who do just tend to learn up about bitcoin then that simple explanation at first would already be enough.Not too technical to understand and besides
when giving out explanation you should give also some sites as reference.

i do not see any difficulty in the definition of bitcoin as it is the culture of definition, simply get terminologies and also a common environmental applicable example that can best explain what the bitcoin is and that becomes your own customized definition. bitcoin is simply a digital currency system of peer to peer irreversible exchange of coins/money in real time with an immutable ledger system that keeps record of all the details of that transaction.

Are you to a non bitcoiner? Because it seems like you are one. It is actually easy to define bitcoin, it is a digital currency, or cryptocurrency. Tell him that it is a currency but a digital one. Like the typical currency, you can use your bitcoin to buy things, you can even use it to play on gaming sites (https://vegascasino.io/casino/video-slots/durian-dynamite?utm_source=ccdd) that I personally do when I'm bored so I am entertain. You can even exchange bitcoin to other cryptocurrencies like to the typical currency. You can also invest it.

Right.You just simply tell him that bitcoin is a digital currency.It might not be adopted in most countries for now but soon it will because it has a lot of potentials that will surely help and rises the country's economy.It may also be a great investment that can give us huge profits particularly if you keep holding it for a long time.

Bump.

I believe it might be better to stop defining Bitcoin as "money", and start thinking about it as a "ledger based on cryptographic proof, not based on trust"?

With that definition, would franky1 be right that Bitcoin should be a medium of exchange more, than a store of value?

Shower thought. 8)

that definition doesn't make bitcoin not money. if people use it as money, then that's what it is. it's up to the market.

besides, i think it's important to convey that bitcoin isn't merely numbers on a screen. it's not created out of thin air. it has a distinct monetary policy, and is naturally a hard money because of its limited supply. the cryptography underlying bitcoin is not the whole story---the economic design is vital to making it work. the economic design is what makes it money.


bitcoin shouldn't be anything. it just is.