Introducing those around you to Bitcoin – Bitcoin Magazine
This is an opinion editorial by Holly Young, Ph.D., an active builder in the Portuguese Bitcoin community.
The number of people buying and using Bitcoin is on the rise. Jason Deane calculated that in the first six months of 2021, the number of Bitcoin users grew by about 165 people per minute. That sounds like a lot – right?
But we need to get to a point where Bitcoin takes its place in common parlance and we all have a role to play.
If you’re reading this, it’s probably because you’ve been through the personal epiphany that is the “discovery” of Bitcoin. Most of us can recognize the stages in others as well. We tend to go from skepticism to a tentative trial of Bitcoin and a small investment, a (usually short) phase where we believe that this or that altcoin is also a viable investment (be honest, you probably did that too on a point in time and no, it wasn’t just the state of the market at the time – doing your own research also includes at least considering the other options before concluding that maximalism is the way forward). And then comes the fall – for most of us steep and irreversible – down the rabbit hole. At that stage, we can’t get enough. We are hungry for real information about money. Most of us have been that person who sits for 30 minutes in a stationary car at the destination to listen to the last bit of the podcast while the penny drops. Not just one crown, but a shiny cascade of them. I know I have.
Then comes the time when your life starts to change too. You start to question everything – because if what you knew before about money was untrue, what does that mean for healthcare? For diet? For family or dating? Even your relationship with God?
There’s no denying it – “finding” Bitcoin is absolutely life-changing, and once you’ve seen it, there’s no going back.
For many of us, this can lead to some difficult changes in life. We may find ourselves alienated from previous social circles, even from relationships and family. And then comes the sudden, amazing realization that the Bitcoin community is already out there. For many of us, spending time with other Bitcoiners represents the first time we haven’t been considered an outsider.
Then we will tell everyone we know about it. We’re just desperate to inform friends, family, colleagues – heck, even the random stranger who happened to be standing next to us in the supermarket queue. For many of these people, that contact and learning process will be as life-changing as it has been for you and me. But it still happens on a regular basis that we fail to deliver the message we intended to deliver and that the learning opportunity that the supermarket queue provides is missed. Adoption is, frankly, nowhere near where we expect it to be, given the circumstances. So, where are we going wrong?
Bitcoin at the kitchen table
Let’s face it, it is hard to talk about money. According to this article, money is among the top three topics that couples argue about, along with sex and children. (By the way, the Bitcoin community is clearing up these topics as well.)
Being able to discuss money in your family is a very important skill. We should be able to have flowing, relaxed conversations about money, and the basis of those conversations must be about the real nature of money – where it comes from, how it works, and what we need it to do. To get to this point, we need to educate friends and family about algebra (money) and trigonometry (banking and the financial system) before explaining calculus (bitcoin). Speaking in extremely practical terms can be very helpful for this. What problem does bitcoin solve for you? What problem does bitcoin solve for friends and family? What problem does bitcoin solve for those living in the global south or under oppressive regimes?
We also suffer from a lack of good, accessible learning resources for this purpose. The Bitcoin Standard is a wonderful resource for those who are truly willing to learn about money, but still requires a significant investment of time and can be a bit much to ask of anyone just starting out. We need more resources that people can look at in the first half hour of their interest – resources that will provide a nutshell overview and spark interest to learn more. We need some good Bitcoin books for children – because children are always the future, and our children especially as those who at the earliest age will have learned about Bitcoin – who in many cases will never have known a world before Bitcoin. Quick shout out here to the Bitcoin rabbi, Michael Caras for writing an excellent one: “Bitcoin Money: A Tale of Bitville Discovering Good Money.”
Put down your Twitter handle and walk away with your hands in the air
Boys. We need to talk about Twitter.
Just as we all go through a phase of thinking this or that altcoin is the next big investment before we see sense and condemn altcoins for the scams they are, we also all go through a phase of telling ourselves and others that we’re on Twitter “to learn.” As with all the most convincing excuses, there is a grain of truth there. Navigating your way through the plethora of Bitcoin content, the good, the bad and the ugly, can be a tough call. Twitter can help you identify the people—influencers, if you will—who have the hottest word about Bitcoin, who have the cutest soundbites, who can most succinctly tell you why they’re a Bitcoin Maximalist this week.
It’s also about who’s hating who right now, who we’re canceling because they might have the audacity to charge for a course, because they dared to suggest that maximalism is getting a little toxic around the edges or who now has the dubious honor of being the focus of negative attention.
While Twitter has undeniably played an important role in the development of the international Bitcoin community (and may I just take a moment to acknowledge that many Bitcoiners, quite rightly, love Jack Dorsey), it also plays a destructive role, slurping up our time and our attention and wasting our energy on pointless fighting. We will never insult people to financial freedom. Encouraging people to do their own research is undermined by canceller culture.
We need solid, interesting, engaging material for those starting out and learning about Bitcoin.
Here’s a thought. Take a look at how much screen time you spend on Twitter each day and make a promise: take half of that time and spend it explaining Bitcoin to someone new or developing something online that people can use as a learning resource instead.
If you want to trash Twitter, do it privately. Take it outside, into the virtual parking lot with instant messages.
A call to arms
Who have you orange pilled this week? We underestimate the power of community – and joining a community as such is not necessarily part of becoming a Bitcoiner – just one of the beautiful things about the freedom it brings is that you can choose how far into the experience you want to go. But once you see the ugly soul of the fiat system and the pristine alternative Bitcoin offers, you can’t look away. It can even be argued that there is a moral and ethical duty there to help others towards a better system as well.
So here is my request. Use some of your time this week to make some positive contributions in the form of orange peeling. We can’t all be Jack Dorsey, Michael Saylor or Lyn Alden. But we can all make Bitcoin a topic of discussion around the kitchen table. We can all share the knowledge and information we have acquired ourselves with those close to us – yes, even in the supermarket.
Invest some of your time thinking about the message about Bitcoin that you share with others. Troubleshoot your approach. Are you doing anything efficient? Where are you wrong? And if you can, share those learning experiences as well.
This is a guest post by Holly Young. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc Bitcoin Magazine.
