4 Tips To Explaining Cryptocurrency To Newcomers

Sometimes when a person is quite knowledgeable about a topic it becomes difficult for them to then explain that to others who don't know as much or anything about it at all.

As you are among the early adopters of what is potentially going to be the future of money, you have the grand opportunity of imparting not only your enthusiasm, but also your understanding to anybody else who asks. And as cryptocurrency becomes more mainstream, if helps to be able to share your knowledge in a way that newcomers can understand.

With that said, here are four mistakes to avoid.

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Number one: using the word “cryptocurrency*.”

Yes I have used it with you now, it's in the title of this post, but that's because I know who my audience is. And if you're talking to someone who isn't already knowledgeable about these things the word “cryptocurrency” not only gives them nothing that they can work with – crypt? What, like the crypt keeper? Crypt. What's crypt?

But it also just makes it sound foreign and unapproachable. As an example I used this word myself one time with a curious person and then I said, 'Kind of like digital currency.' And they said, “Oh, digital currency. I know what both of those words mean. That's much better." And it is much better. So, number one, scratch the word “cryptocurrency” and use digital currency or digital money or like in Dash, digital cash.

Number two: Avoid using buzzwords like disruptive and trustless and permissionless and these other things which don't actually give any immediate meaning to your listener but probably just create even more questions for them.

For example, the first time I explained the blockchain to someone who had never been exposed to the idea yet, I explained how the decentralized nature of a public ledger makes it censorship resistant. The blockchain allows users to transact value without the need for a third party. It's a trustless system.

What I learned was using the word trustless was upsetting to my audience because it sounded like it was a service that could not be trusted.

Buzzwords in general that are totally up to interpretation and may land with your listener in a way that you never intended and just confuses the listener. Steer clear.

Number three: Define the jargon terms you're going to use for your listener because newcomers do not know what a blockchain is, what a miner is, what a node is, what, I mean consensus even should be defined, certainly they don't know what a confirmation is, or a block reward or any of these things.

And it can be so tempting to use these terms without defining them because of course, you know what they mean. You have the problem of knowledge. And your crypto compatriots know what they mean. But in my experience, it helps so much to define these terms first because otherwise a person is left feeling like: “Oh, I should know what that means. Just because you know what it means doesn't mean your audience should know.

They start to think they are hopelessly out of the loop and ought to just steer clear of this digital currency thing altogether because clearly they're not hip enough to understand.”

As examples: A blockchain can be easily defined as a ledger or a record of ownership.

A miner can be defined as a person who's computer uses math to ensure that the record of ownership is accurate.

A confirmation can be defined as the moment miners agree previous transfers of ownership are accurate.

And number four: Explain why Satoshi invented blockchain-based digital currency in the first place.

Many, or even most people you talk to will likely be perfectly happy, if not content, with the way their finances currently run. Their credit card works. Their paper money works. Maybe they use checks – their checks work. And for this reason, there may not be an initial compelling selling point to digital currency.

Until you mention that in the first block ever mined in Bitcoin Satoshi embedded a message that said that yet another bank bailout was taking place.

More people, unfortunately, are experiencing firsthand real bank bailouts or bank bailins and inflation on the money they use everyday.

What really strikes at the core of what it is you want to talk to them about in the first place. Satoshi mentioned in his white paper that when all transactions are made public in a publicly-verifiable ledger of ownership, people and institutions cannot be secretly insolvent.

In other words, Satoshi saw the cause of banking crises as being secret ledgers of ownership and so he created the first open ledger of ownership.

So with these four pointers:

• Don't use the word cryptocurrency
• Don't use buzzwords
• Define your jargon before you use it and
• Talk about Satoshi

You are going to find yourself in some excellent conversations.

As a final message to you I want to remind you to slow down when talking about cryptocurrencies to newcomers. I can be a lot of information to digest for people hearing about it for the first time and you need to let them absorb what you're saying before feeding them more information.

Too much information too fast can create information overload and they won't understand anything you're saying at that point.

Imagine feeding a baby a spoonful of food. You wouldn't cram another spoonful in their mouth before they swallowed the previous bite. No, you would wait until the child swallowed the last bite and had their mouth open ready for another bite.

Same thing with explaining bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies to newbies, wait until they understand what you explained before explaining more. Give them time to process the information before giving them more information.

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