Last night I was on Twitter, which has become a common occurrence for me of evenings, something was different the conversations were different, and they were about subjects that I knew minute details about.
The thing is my terrible knowledge and experience of this subject was far greater than the people that were talking, what am I talking about? Of course cryptocurrency.
With coinbase IPO, this was all the talk, people were actively engaging in conversations about cryptocurrency, primarily Bitcoin.
But this was good people were talking about it, saying how they were going to make money from it.
The problems:
The problem was people were not talking about, the great future of a decentralised financial system, having control of your own money, the limited supply of a currency that cannot be manipulated from outside influence.
They were not talking about any of this, the conversation was very narrow, and this got me thinking. Right now we are still at a time where every single person whom is reading this text is new to this still, the majority of the world and people, do not know the ins and outs.
Information around the subject is poor, the big headlines, are about how people have lost millions by losing their security key, or how the origin is from anonymity and silk road. The 'volatility' of the coin. The scams and the cons
This is what people generally hear. Yesterday they saw the potential benefits that money will go up, this is mainly all the people that were talking yesterday cared about, investments, the coin is going up so we get some. But not why not the potential revolution that will come.
The doge problem:
I really worry about doge, and I think it has the potential to destroy many peoples beliefs with crypto in the future. People are going to think this is a magic cash machine, that you put money into and it grows exponentially, surely this cannot be the case for this coin.
A part of me thinks I might be wrong and in 50 years doge will be the new global currency, in a dystopian world where memes are our currency.
But I have this fear that people getting into crypto is going to head to doge and instead lose money. They may make money in the short term but the long term really? really?, I don't think so.
The 'my coin is the best all others are crap argument:'
This is again one thing, I think when people are going to start looking into these coins, they will see loads of people shouting and balling, that its ETH, BTC, BCH, Nano that's the best and all the others are rubbish. This is just going to confuse people.
What do we need to do:
Simple educate I think people are going to be asking, questions, they are intrigued, what's going on, what is this magic internet money.
Tell them what you know, what your thoughts and beliefs are, what others are, what people hope to happen, what might happen.
Never tell people this is easy money, that they are going to be rich if they invest in x, y or z, if it goes wrong they will take this as a con.
Probably in my real life, I can not think of anyone who knows anything at all other than hearing the words bitcoin.
When I invested a modest amount, in projects I discovered, read up on and believed in. Family friends called me idiots. When I tell them how much it is worth. "I gambled and won."
The few people that have engaged with me in a proper conversation, I've explained what I think, shown how I earn a modest tiny amount of bitcoin cash through writing crap articles. How quickly I can send that to them, or the other side of the world and how minimal the fees are. You can see they are starting to get it, comparing this to sending money to the other side of the world and it taking a couple of days and a nice fee popping out. Hoping the money will go through.
How this is my money, not a banks, mine, I own the keys. You see the kind of amazement, wait maybe this isn't a gimmick. This isn't a con, this is new and different, and you can see the benefits everywhere potentially
The biggest problem to mass adoption:
The biggest problem that I think to mass adoption is it's not tangible, these keys and code in the ether, isn't tangible you cant hold it.
Even though so many of us don't hold money now anyway it is all electronic, so why is it different because it is new.
The real problem is we don't really understand how money works in the general public, it is never explained where it comes from, economics, are not common pieces of knowledge that are explained. That we are at the will of governments controlling how much there is creating more, causing inflation, so your money goes down in real terms all the time.
The alternative, a naturally deflationary currency, that by its nature can only increase in value.
But this train is moving and moving fast, it will inevitably be slowed down by people on the way, but there is no stopping it now. But the point that I was trying to make was, we can make it go in the direction we want.
We want people to fall in love with this, be passionate about it, not be deterred by complex technology that many don't understand (including me), not falling for new ponzi schemes and scams.
The more people gain some idea of what this is, what they can do with it and where it is going, the quicker it will come.
