Bitcoin needs to be simplified for the stupid.

[BTCisthefuture]

Yes I think everyone can agree that bitcoin needs to be a lot more simplified for it ever to go "mainstream".

The truth is that with the exception of the ones that work in IT , pretty much all of my friends have no desire to use bitcoin when I try to explain it to them and they tend to just have a blank stare on their face. 

[marcus_of_augustus]

pretty much all of my friends have no desire to use bitcoin when I try to explain it to them and they tend to just have a blank stare on their face.

... consider that maybe you are hanging out with stupid people?

[Loozik]

pretty much all of my friends have no desire to use bitcoin when I try to explain it to them and they tend to just have a blank stare on their face.

... consider that maybe you are hanging out with stupid people?

Come on... being IT-not-gifted does not equal being stupid. His friends may very well be great musicians, dancers, writers. How would you react when labelled stupid for your potential poor musical, dancing or writing skills?

[freedomno1]

pretty much all of my friends have no desire to use bitcoin when I try to explain it to them and they tend to just have a blank stare on their face.

... consider that maybe you are hanging out with stupid people?

Or scared of the new tech conservative isn't == stupid just means cautious unless your progressive and will accept change

[johnyj]

No, grandma must understand public key and private key, there is no way to jump over this fundamental mechanism of cryptography 

I think a good move is to make a physical private key just like grandma's key to her house

[wumpus]

No, grandma must understand public key and private key, there is no way to jump over this fundamental mechanism of cryptography  

I think a good move is to make a physical private key just like grandma's key to her house

Nah, i don't agree. The abstraction is wallets, not keys. The "stupid" don't need to understand how the internals of a wallet work any more than they need to know what molecules and atoms make up the internals of a physical wallet (and if they do they should know they can easily blow up their wallet messing with random chemicals :-).

The current take on user-friendly interface is to import, export, backup, on the level of entire wallets. HD wallets would be preferred as they need to be backed up only once. A generic import/export format for wallets between clients is in the works.

Physical devices also work at the wallet level, not on an individual private/public key. I'm really interested in developments there too.

What is next simplification?

Simplify the use of Bitcoin-Qt. Translate DOS-like commands in Console into idiot-proof dialogue windows for grandmas and non-geeks so that they could too make benefit of Bitcoin-Qt's capabilities: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=198389.0

Right, but that is already under way. Once some way of working warrants a dialog window, a dialog window will be added. The console however is for developers, and grandmas and such should really stay out of it. They can send coins and receive coins from/to their grandchildren with the UI interface just fine.

[QuestionAuthority]

It’s interesting to me that over the last few years I’ve watched people rehash the same topics over and over again. Most of the usernames change but the answers are always the same and almost predictable.  I guess it’s not possible to come up with much new material on a fairly dry finance topic.


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=100639.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=10906.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=12845.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=133787.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=148339.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=17034.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=108991.0

[wumpus]

It’s interesting to me that over the last few years I’ve watched people rehash the same topics over and over again. Most of the usernames change but the answers are always the same and almost predictable.  I guess it’s not possible to come up with much new material on a fairly dry finance topic.

It's also due to the structure of a forum. In the beginning I already noticed that the forum has essentially no short nor long term memory. It's always the same topics, same questions. May be due to a broken search, or no incentive to search; too easy to create a new one, and there is (unlike reddit et al) no voting mechanism to quickly sink the crap topics to the bottom.

It'd be great to have some archive of most common questions and remarks and answers to that. There is https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ but it mostly addresses concerns about the system, it is not extensive enough to refer to in cases like this.

I guess people are lazy enough to keep anything like that up to date, but not lazy enough to answer the same questions time after time

[Deafboy]

For "stupid" you need to have a bank with full control over customers money. Which will also destroy all advantages of Bitcoin over PayPal-like services.
Without 3rd party organization, there is a chance they will loose the wallet, forget the password, install a virus, damage a trezor device, lost the paper with seed... Who will be blamed when such things happen? "BAD, BAD Bitcoin!"

Don't trust me? Just look at how many tech. skilled people had their savings on InstaWallet or MyBitcoin.

[Loozik]

No, grandma must understand public key and private key, there is no way to jump over this fundamental mechanism of cryptography  

Grandmas will have no problem with understanding a public key, a private key and a wallet.

Grandmas will have problem understanding ''importing a private key'', ''dumping private key''.

Imagine the following situation:

Grandson: Dear, this is a paper wallet for you. Factually a paper wallet is a piece of paper with toner on it.
Grandma: Fantastic. I can pay for my new jaw now.
Grandson: But before you pay you must first import the key printed on this piece of paper into Bitcoin-Qt
Grandma: But I am not in an import-export business, I do not want to import anything. Besides I already have the private key. It would make a better sense if I export what I already have rather than import what I already have, right?
Grandson: You stupid woman. Just type your private key into Bitcoin-Qt.
Grandma: Why didn't you simply say I need to type it. Why so sophisticated words for an action that even stone age people could perform? BTW, wouldn't it be much more convenient for me in 21. century to tell Bitcoin-Qt what I want to do, e.g. if I want to make a payment I simply click ''make the payment'', then Bitcoin-Qt asks ''from available funds or from a paper wallet?'', if I click ''from a paper wallet'', then Bitcoin-Qt just prompts me to type the private key? On the other hand, must I remember all these bad grammar phrases like ''importprivkey''?
Grandson: It's for your own good that you learn new stuff, you silly. Be more geeky.

[wumpus]

Grandmas will have no problem with understanding a public key, a private key and a wallet.

Grandmas will have problem understanding ''importing a private key'', ''dumping private key''.

Solution: if you need paper wallets, use a client that supports this natively, such as Armory.

Do not tell non-technical people to mess around with individual private/public keys in Bitcoin-Qt. NEVER.

[CanadianGuy]

Why not just represent the private key with a PIN so that its as easy as a debit card?
grandma understands PIN numbers  

[Loozik]

Solution: if you need paper wallets, use a client that supports this natively, such as Armory.

Do not tell non-technical people to mess around with individual private/public keys in Bitcoin-Qt. NEVER.

I do not need it. Importing private key was just an example of how ''grandmas'' or ''the stupid'' will think.

BTW, is there a reason why Bitcoin-Qt would not support (in future) a native feature of private key importing?

[marcus_of_augustus]

pretty much all of my friends have no desire to use bitcoin when I try to explain it to them and they tend to just have a blank stare on their face.

... consider that maybe you are hanging out with stupid people?

Come on... being IT-not-gifted does not equal being stupid. His friends may very well be great musicians, dancers, writers. How would you react when labelled stupid for your potential poor musical, dancing or writing skills?

ok .. it was half tongue in cheek but it has flushed out some of the truth of the matter ... they do not want to learn then?

[wumpus]

BTW, is there a reason why Bitcoin-Qt would not support (in future) a native feature of private key importing?

It will support "sweep", ie, "send me all coins from this private key", without adding the key to the wallet. This is superior for all cases that involve paper wallets, as unlike a naive "add to wallet" it does not encourage keys to exist in multiple places, potentially leading to all kinds of problems for the unaware.

And also it will still work for Hierarchical Deterministic (HD) wallets in which all keys are generated from one seed, so naive importing isn't even possible.

[Loozik]

It will support "sweep", ie, "send me all coins from this private key", without adding the key to the wallet.

This ''sweep'' feature is nice. Do you have an idea when it might be implemented?

This is superior for all cases that involve paper wallets, as unlike a naive "add to wallet" it does not encourage keys to exist in multiple places, potentially leading to all kinds of problems for the unaware.

My guess is that a natively supported import of private keys in Armory also potentially leads to existing private keys in multiple places?

[wumpus]

It will support "sweep", ie, "send me all coins from this private key", without adding the key to the wallet.

This ''sweep'' feature is nice. Do you have an idea when it might be implemented?

When a developer feels like implementing it and has time to do it. There is not really a timeline as we're working on this on our spare time. All help is appreciated.

My guess is that a natively supported import of private keys in Armory also potentially leads to existing private keys in multiple places?

Yes. Using a different client won't protect you against those risks, although I'm not up to date on how Armory handles it, maybe it does a "sweep" already. I refered to Armory because it has a built-in "use case" for offline/paper wallets, which may make it somewhat safer for users as they're told what (and what not) to do. Which is better than randomly fiddling around with RPC commands found on a wiki, for example.

[Loozik]

... they do not want to learn then?

I have a colleague who is a surgeon + researcher on 3D printed organs. He makes magical stuff and is definitely not stupid. He works 16h a day. He could devote 1 hour a week to learn bitcoin. Imagine him trying to understand what raw transactions are: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Raw_Transactions

People want to learn, but the stuff is described in a way too hard for non-geeks to understand within their lifetime.

[marcus_of_augustus]

... they do not want to learn then?

I have a colleague who is a surgeon + researcher on 3D printed organs. He makes magical stuff and is definitely not stupid. He works 16h a day. He could devote 1 hour a week to learn bitcoin. Imagine him trying to understand what raw transactions are: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Raw_Transactions

People want to learn, but the stuff is described in a way too hard for non-geeks to understand within their lifetime.

 ... yeah I'm pretty sure a surgeon doesn't need to know about rawtransactions unless he's had a change of heart and is looking for a career change ... what's your real point here?

[wumpus]

I have a colleague who is a surgeon + researcher on 3D printed organs. He makes magical stuff and is definitely not stupid. He works 16h a day. He could devote 1 hour a week to learn bitcoin. Imagine him trying to understand what raw transactions are: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Raw_Transactions

People want to learn, but the stuff is described in a way too hard for non-geeks to understand within their lifetime.

WHY would they want to understand that? Either they are very interested and put some of their brain capacity into learning it (geek out), or they don't. Either way, they're not hurt right?

Specialization is a good thing in this complex world. I wouldn't know where to start implanting organs, and if I spent my time learning that (if I could at all) then I cannot spend that time into learning to write better software. So we have this thing called trade... and hey, we're on the bitcoin forums, our aim is to make that easier