Your Best Bitcoin Analogy, Please

[ico41]

Maybe one of the most difficult things is to explain Bitcoin to someone who has no background in technology, no background in finance, but a keen interest in many things. I'm not talking about people who don't have an interest - I mean people who really want to understand it and just don't get it.

It very much depends, from my experience, on the background of the person, in order to reach them. In order for them to have that "Aha" reaction.

If you have a particularly apt analogy that you use in order to describe how Bitcoin or perhaps blockchain technology works ... please post it here.

[roberthus]

Age does not matter, if you do not want them and the disposition that we have to learn. It had cost me at the beginning but with time everything is possible

[loaddebitcard]

I heard the following analogy that I use all the time to explain blockchain to my friends and relatives:
Blockchain is like a huge notebook where is written who is lender and who is loaner and what amount of money is used. On every page there are information by witnesses with proof. So, if lender or loaner are arguing about what amount of money was used in transaction there are witnesses that prove that data has not been changed or corrupted. These pages are basically blocks of blockchain. Even if some of them will be lost, there are still enough pages (blocks) left.

[Kprawn]

Well, just use Gold as an example : Gold is a scarce commodity and it is mined. The Bitcoin miners are running software that

are looking for these bitcoins. {over simplified} Once they put the work in, they get rewarded for their efforts with bitcoins

that are released from a pre-determined protocol. {they process the transactions and validate them on a database that are

stored on a decentralized Blockchain} ...There will only be 21 000 000 bitcoins released, so it is just as scarce as Gold.