Dear Bitcoin Talk,

When I try to explain Bitcoin to people who don't know it, I get a bit tongue-twisted. Anyone have any elegant explanations that anyone could understand?

I like reddit's concise "Magic Internet Money" but it doesn't really explain it.

Let me try a few:

• "the Internet is to communication as bitcoin is to money" - very vague
• "It takes control of money away from big banks and gives it to you" - a bit idealistic
• "It lets you very quickly send anyone in the world money, the way email lets you send someone a letter" - better

So, how does one nicely explain bitcoin to a normal person in 1 sentence, or 2, or 4, 8 or even 16.

Also, I'd like to introduce myself. I'm one of Armory's newest full-time employees, and I'm just getting up to speed with Armory and the inner workings of Bitcoin itself. I haven't had much of a public face with regards to bitcoin because I don't like talking. I approach Bitcoin from the technical point of view more than the idealistic. Cryptography is cool, and computers can do fun things. Also I'm a professional C++ programmer and I'll be happy to give anyone technical help when it comes to that. I live in Santa Cruz County and I'm happy to meet people in meatspace to discuss bitcoin and drink coffee or beer.

edit: I changed the sentence to powers of two