Please Explain Bitcoin to an 80 (tech savvy) year old man
I was asked by a wealthy friend of mine, (after me suggesting he invest in bitcoin) to explain to him why he should invest in bitcoin? He believes that it is a scam while I am trying to explain that it is built on "trust". Then I found that I had a hard time explaining exactly what bitcoin is and how it works? I found that after months of researching I still could not give a clear answer. I would like to hear others explanation and or opinions on this matter.
It's rather built on trustlessness, actually.
:DIt mostly depends on the person to explain to and their background.
In this case, you might tell him it's a way to store and transfer money, globally, borderless, near-instantly and with negligible fees, and as such a competitor to PayPal, Western Union, and also banks (savings and checkings account), i.e. it will seriously cut into their market share. As such, of course there is serious market value behind it.
With the twist that Bitcoin is not a company. (This might be hardest thing to grasp for most out-of-band people out there.) It is a network that is run by its users for its users on the internet. For technical reasons, it uses its own tokens (small-b bitcoins) that are used as the transfer units, that are limited in amount, and are traded on various marketplaces and exchanges to and from national currencies. The bitcoin tokens also represent the shares in this network, and hence represent the value of this network measured against its mentioned competitors. Hence, this is no scam.
Thanks for explaining bitcoin.
However: at the moment bitcoin is not near-instant.
And there are transaction fees.
This may change in the future, or not.
Still it is a disruptive technology.
It's near-instant compared to bank transfers, and there are negligible fees as compared to PayPal and Western Union.
New developments like the Lightning Network will improve on that.
If you refer to other crypto-currencies that claim to be even more instant and require even less fees, then keep in mind that all the different types of blockchain concepts and consensus models have their specific advantages and drawbacks. One is not better than the other.