Why is Bitcoin difficult to understand?

[Ozkhan]

If you look at it as Currency, it is difficult for an average person to understand it because it is different.
Bitcoin, being a different kind of a digital currency, it breaks down conventional thinking in many aspects. No central regulatory body. The concept of mining. The open-ledger (blockchain), the way miners are rewarded, how transporting value is determined by its packet size and not value, the hash rate, the concept of limited supply. The 100 Million pennies in a Bitcoin, etc.
Its difficult enough for people in the money space to thoroughly understand Bitcoin (we all say we understand it, but do we really?).
For a common person, its an overkill. Its like trying to explain the concept of TCP/IP, Networking, Routing, the Internet for someone who wants to use email.  Overkill.

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[bitfocus]

There are lots of short length videos on youtube to understand Bitcoin in very easy ways. People should use google a little. Also, sites like this one provides very informative how-to and guides https://www.bitcoinmarketinsider.com/what-is-bitcoin/

[rommelzkie]

Its not that difficult. bitcoin is plain and simple.

Bitcoin is the name of the token created under his block - chain

Block - chain is the name of the technology used to store transaction data of all bitcoin tokens.

In short, block-chain is an online ledger of transactions accessible for all people. It is irreversible.

[Sulwan2612]

There are so many references that will help you to understand what bitcoin is, try to find it in google , youtube , blogs, or many other website that explain about bitcoin, the first time i knew about bitcoin, i also got a difficulty to understand, i tried to learn it step by step until now, keep learning buddy

[Bonnie Cleary]

bitcoin difficult to understand because the bitcoin coin is first digital currency and most probably human not understand .and if you really want to know so go on youtube ....there have more videos of bitcoin.

[wantjokull]

If you look at it as Currency, it is difficult for an average person to understand it because it is different.
Bitcoin, being a different kind of a digital currency, it breaks down conventional thinking in many aspects. No central regulatory body. The concept of mining. The open-ledger (blockchain), the way miners are rewarded, how transporting value is determined by its packet size and not value, the hash rate, the concept of limited supply. The 100 Million pennies in a Bitcoin, etc.
Its difficult enough for people in the money space to thoroughly understand Bitcoin (we all say we understand it, but do we really?).
For a common person, its an overkill. Its like trying to explain the concept of TCP/IP, Networking, Routing, the Internet for someone who wants to use email.  Overkill.

May be yes that is how it all works. For general public bitcoin is just medium of transaction and lately it is just way of earning money. Thats all people think about it. In reality no one really want to understand how bitcoin is really working here or how the mechanism of action takes place when someone transact over the blockchain and how miners catch and verify it. They just know that its BTC and it has got value wroth thousands of dollars. They know various ways to grow their fiat by means of using bitcoin. That is all it is for general population and I think it will stay as it is !

[Pursuer]

for the end user who wants to use bitcoin as a currency it is not at all difficult specially these days that there are lots of options to use as your wallet. maybe in 2009 things were complicated because you had one option and that was running a full node which could also mine for you but today you just choose a wallet and put the amount to pay in the respective field and click send. it is that simple! with web wallets, Coinbase, SPV wallets,... things are easy.

what you are pointing out is understanding things you don't need to know in order to use bitcoin. it is optional to learn and will help you know the technology. and that is not a problem with bitcoin you will face the same challenge if you try and understand any other technology like how does your smart phone work?

[NeuroticFish]

Overkill.

No. It's overkill if you don't refine your questions. If you ask too vaguely, you'll get much more info than you may need.
Do you know how banks send the money internally, how they store them, how your VISA card communicates with the bank when inserted into a PoS? I guess not. Then why you try to focus on all the details for Bitcoin?

You need to understand a small number of things:
1. Wallet safety and computer safety.
2. How to look onto a website to check if the fee you choose is right.
3. Install and run a simple wallet, like Electrum, how to send and receive.
4. [Maybe] How to check on a 3rd party website if a transaction was sent and confirmed.

This means that you need some 15 minutes to pay attention.

[reda]

Overkill.

No. It's overkill if you don't refine your questions. If you ask too vaguely, you'll get much more info than you may need.
Do you know how banks send the money internally, how they store them, how your VISA card communicates with the bank when inserted into a PoS? I guess not. Then why you try to focus on all the details for Bitcoin?

You need to understand a small number of things:
1. Wallet safety and computer safety.
2. How to look onto a website to check if the fee you choose is right.
3. Install and run a simple wallet, like Electrum, how to send and receive.
4. [Maybe] How to check on a 3rd party website if a transaction was sent and confirmed.

This means that you need some 15 minutes to pay attention.

Before use the bitcoin lean the information and process. Then easy to use. If don't know any information. It nof easy to use. It digital currency. So it safely use the bitcoin. It good future saving. So don't want the coin. So lean the information of the coin. If need for more information check the market place and coin disk. Then get more information day by day. So time is important of all process. So time to buy and sell it.

[hitrawal91]

There is nothing complex in bitcoin, it is only we who think bitcoin is complex and actually we don't know how to tell people what bitcoin is and it is difficult to teach people what is bitcoin and how all the process goes on. There are many youtube and vimeo videos released by which one can easily understand the concept of bitcoin. You can also make use of Facebook groups, google and yahoo answers in order to know the bitcoin or in order to explain the bitcoin in a much better way.

[cryptokingdom]

Some people naturally like to stick to what they know and what they learnt from their grand father without embracing new things. You will be surprise that so many people in my country do not use ATM, they still prefer to withdraw money inside the bank. No matter how you simplify the usage   of bitcoin most people will not understand because they do not want to understand.

[davis196]

Why do people have to understand bitcoin?They can use it without the need to understand how the blockchain works.Most of the people don`t even understand how a bank works,but they open bank accounts all the time.Do you know how PayPal and VISA work?I don`t think so,but most likely you have a PayPal account or VISA card.

[DooMAD]

There is quite a bit to explain if they really want to understand on a technical level, but then the same applies to Automated Clearing Houses.  It doesn't matter if none of that makes sense, because you don't need to understand it to use cards to pay for stuff.  Just like you don't need to be a technical expert in Bitcoin to use it effectively.  Plus, clever people are always coming up with new ways to make the software more user-friendly.  It's only ever going to get easier to use over time.  All anyone really needs to understand is to observe someone sending a transaction to see how simple it is.

Of course, we should encourage people to understands things a little better.  Part of the reason the traditional financial system is such a mess is because the average Joe Public doesn't know how it really works.  Some people genuinely still believe banks lend out from existing deposits, for example.  Almost everyone has heard of the phrase "fractional reserve", but I doubt more than 50% of people could explain it correctly.  But anyone who really wants to understand Bitcoin will inevitably find their way here to these boards.   

[Ariem]

People are treated with apprehension and distrust to everything new, just like people immediately treated electricity, internet and credit cards. I think time will pass, it can be five or ten years and people will begin to understand and trust to bitcoin and will get used to it.

[bigmaster23]

many understands crypto as a rising aviation to success, delinquent person often chose the fact before waiting the goal of that matter, as for this some people had heard the news of the rising popularity of bitcoin and all of their friends tag along and friends of their friend also hang on the trend, we see that every person involve with the paragraph jump in to bitcoin without basic knowledge to crypto this is the reason why many or some lose about 50 to 70 percent investment in their bitcoin as bitcoin back down from 6k $ to 15K if your not smart enough with this and hoping for bitcoin to recover as fast as it drops your living in a dilemma situation.

[happistarjp]

You have to educate yourself if you really want to learn what is Bitcoin and how it works. There are a lot of instructional videos on YouTube, news articles from the web, there are also infographics on Pinterest that are very helpful. You got all the resources that y'all need. So it's really not that difficult after all .

[brainape]

You have to educate yourself if you really want to learn what is Bitcoin and how it works. There are a lot of instructional videos on YouTube, news articles from the web, there are also infographics on Pinterest that are very helpful. You got all the resources that y'all need. So it's really not that difficult after all .

I think its not a rocket science to understand. It even do not require a regular or proper education, you just need to study about it for some time so that you may know about the basics of bitcoin and understand how to use it. the only important is that you must have some basic knowledge about computer android mobile and about internet, and i think that you will learn about bitcoin within few hours. 

[DooMAD]

People are treated with apprehension and distrust to everything new, just like people immediately treated electricity, internet and credit cards. I think time will pass, it can be five or ten years and people will begin to understand and trust to bitcoin and will get used to it.

Yes, there's definitely an element of that too.  It doesn't help that mainstream media often call it a scam/ponzi/bubble/etc, meaning that some people are less inclined to look into it because the media have already told them what to think.  Everyone wants to get their information second-hand rather than finding out for themselves.  I suspect it's going to take a while for perceptions to change.

You need to understand a small number of things:
1. Wallet safety and computer safety.

To play devil's advocate, this alone is sometimes too complicated a subject for many people, heh.  By the time you've told them to be careful with online services designed to hold funds (which should always be one of the first things to explain to new users), make regular backups, how to store the backups securely, use a unique and strong password, not lose your password, how to keep your devices secure and malware-free, etc. many of them will have glazed over and forgotten half of what you just told them.  

[aoluain]

I think the most difficult part that people have trouble understanding is mining
and the fact that coins are just created from "nowhere"

I find if the explanations are simple with simple language people can get their
head around the concept.

Phrases like:
Calculating transactions rather than Mining and algorithms
Secure folder on a computer instead of encrypted wallet
as an example.

[Sir Cross]

Bitcoin is definitely not for everyone. Bitcoin is kind of hard to explain to people who are not inclined to technology, especially old people. Not to generalize, but people who are not into technology may also not be interested in studying bitcoin. It’s hard to explain anything to someone who is not really interested. Some people also have negative views regarding bitcoin which makes them skeptical about it. Bitcoin is not hard to understand, I think it depends on the interest of the person to understand it.