Most of the people I know and interact with in everyday life have no knowledge of Bitcoin at all.
A small portion of them have some basic knowledge, but mostly about cryptocurrencies in general. Their understanding is focused more on trading. For them, Bitcoin is simply electronic money that has a certain value compared to fiat currency.
When I try to talk to people from the first category, I encounter resistance, distrust, and skepticism. They don’t want to listen and they reject all of my explanations and arguments.
When I try to talk to those from the second category, they are much more interested in trading strategies, exchanges, predictive AI trading bots, and similar things. None of them wants to buy bitcoin and hold it long term, or use it directly to purchase products and services.
Why do people continue to remain so skeptical about Bitcoin (except of being stupid)?
Probably because people (like you) keep trying to "sell them" on Bitcoin. When is the last time someone tried to sell you on the idea of "drinking water" or "breathing air"? Probably never because only things that people DON'T ACTUALLY NEED are sold/advertised.
I swear, maxis who think bitcoin needs evangelists are doing more harm than good. You should wait until people ask you about BTC, then tell them to fuck off, don't buy it, more for me!
It took me going to flight training, learning how an internal combustion engine works, learning how a gas turbine works, then becoming an airline pilot, then flying long distances over the ocean...
To really appreciate Bitcoin and its ability to send energy over the internet. Had I never learned how to fly... I'm not sure I would appreciate Bitcoin so much.
Basically it took years and quite a bit of education in the 'real world.'
I taught over and over again emergency procedures, how to get the engine restarted, what is fuel economy, off-airport landings, aircraft range and performance... I fell in love with aerodynamics and energy management which is what flying a plane is all about.
That took for me years and a unique set of experiences some of which frankly almost killed me. People who haven't... experienced those things I can see why they don't get Bitcoin it's just a shame the 'leaning process' doesn't speed up.
I'm still of the belief we'll have a billion + people using it but it will take a long time. Thank you for all you do.
#1397923
Are you pitching Bitcoin when you say "talk to people"? If someone would pitch me Bitcoin I would also be skeptical and resistant. In fact, when early 2011 a business relation was (poorly) pitching me Bitcoin, I was skeptical. Very skeptical. It took me over 2 years to ignore what was said back then and look into it on my own. Pitches can do more harm than good - it did to me, simply because the ideas of the person pitching it to me did not resonate with my situation, needs or desires, and I ultimately found Bitcoin useful for other reasons than what I was initially pitched.
Because you're probably not using the right arguments for their situation and it is very possible that there are no right arguments right now. And worse, you see people like Saylor on TV and as a consequence you will puke your guts out every time someone says "Bitcoin", because you associate it with Saylor.
For me the public sentiment is always one step forwards two steps back, ever since 2010 onwards the mainstream media has infiltrated the public's psyche with criminals and drugs and laundering, largely financed by the fiat machine which cannot let a threat like Bitcoin propagate into the masses.
So shopkeepers and shoppers are so ingrained with that fiat anti Bitcoin rhetoric they cannot bear to accept it in their shops or customers cannot bear to accept using it
Biggest is there's not a lot of people with wealth sitting around that needs protection
Overwhelming majority of the world population is in survival mode or close to it, long term investing is a luxury they can't afford to think about never mind getting into a rabbit hole
There's your proof, they need income not wealth protection
The biggest barrier to bitcoin adoption is time, and there's not much we can do to speed it up.
Here's my theory. In any given generation, there's a small, roughly fixed percentage of people whose brains are wired to "get it" on contact. Bitcoin spread like wildfire from 2012 to 2017 because we were burning through that pool fast. Ever since, growth has looked more organic. Not because bitcoin got worse at convincing people, but because the easy converts were already converted.
The good news is that this pool refills with every new generational cohort. Combine that with the economic darwinism of having to choose where to store your value over decades, and we win by default. Fiat doesn't have to lose dramatically. It just has to keep doing what it's doing.
So the barrier isn't education, regulation, or UX. It's just time.
I have one and it deeply rooted in every Bitcoin Maxi but if I say it, most people will come for me and I'm man of peace not war.
Probably because most people doesn't really know about Bitcoin, and some people are scared of volatility, while some can't really understand how bitcoin even work.
necessity.
What, your Apple Pay and real-estate/index fund "investments" don't work?
Because our minds are being governed.