My parents are very old school and do not know anything about bitcoin, cryptocurrencies in general, blockchain technologies and decentralization. Furthermore they are extremely sceptic and not that well-educated when it comes to financial issues. They will sell a flat they own and have about 20k money to invest and asked me: Son, where to invest in?
I said: You should diversify a bit. I would buy a portfolio at the stock market for half of the money and buy ethereum with the other half.
Mom: Ethe… what?
I: Ethereum
Mom. What’s this?
I: Well.. hard to explain. Something like… have you heard of bitcoin…
Mom: Ah I’ve heard of this. Our neighbors know someone who lost bitcoins from his computer because he had a virus on his computer.
I: Mmmh normally it should be perfectly safe. There a things like a paper wallet… where a private key is never online
Mom: What?
I: It is perfectly safe. Really. It was his fault and not the bitcoin technology.
Mom: Okay.. I don’t know much about this thing. Why should I invest in bitcoin?
I: I would not invest in Bitcoin but Ethereum. It has faster block times and the tokens have an intrinsic value people often compare to oil. Ether is used to execute smart contracts on the blockchain. Imagine Ether as the fuel that runs the world computer and executes smart contracts on the blockchain. Bitcoin is just a store of value and more associated with crypto-gold.
Mom: Son. What?!
I: Sorry mom. It’s hard to explain the whole thing to someone who does not know anything about blockchains, public ledgers and cryptography… but some people say that blockchain technology will be to the internet what e-mail was to mail. A revolution. You do not need to understand how it works to profit from it. Basically you do not need to know what a hash is, what mining means and so on. I mean everyone uses the internet without knowing how the protocol, IP, DNS servers and so on work. Same with blockchain.
Mom: Ah okay… a revolution. Why?
I: Because with blockchain technology we can get rid of every central entity. No central bank needed, no banks at all. Now you have to trust people and companies too often. Blockchains remove trust.
Mom: What do you mean?
I: Think of paypal or western Union. If you want to transfer value / money to another country - would you rather like to trust Western Union / Paypal / your local bank… pay way too high fees… or chose a system where you can send money in 15 seconds without trusting anyone? With actual transaction costs around 0.01$?
Mom: Okay…
I: Cryptocurrencies are part of a decentralization movement. Our traditional systems are centralized. The government - just a few people that have power - can print money and cause massive inflation. Something like this does not happen in crypto. Money can not be created out of thin air.. everything is a transparent process called mining.
Mom: Could you please stop using thousands of english terms that I do not understand?
I: Okay… I personally think that blockchain technology will revolutionize a lot. It will eliminate banks, companies like visa, paypal and facebook in the long term, create fair and transparent insurances… even decentralize governments
Mom: Why Facebook? And decentralized government? What are you talking about? That’s what I meant when I said we can’t discuss about politics anymore. You live in your own world. You are talking about these weird ideas…
I: Mom. Listen. I do no stick to our traditional system of power, governments and currencies What happened on reddit/steemit regarding the discussions on the ethereum hard fork is amazing. It will be part of history. The hard fork will be the first example for decentralized government. I know that you do not know what reddit is, what steemit is and what a hard fork is. But believe me.. I am very interested in politics.
Mom: Wow…are you an anarchist now?
I: I am interested in a fair and transparent society and fair distribution of power.
Mom: Weird… I mean… I do not know what to say. This scares me. I don’t understand the whole thing. Maybe everything is a big scam or ponzi scheme.
I: It’s not.
Mom: Why are you so sure?
I: I made a few hundred bucks last months without having invested anything. Does this look like a ponzi scheme?
Mom: Son, do you sell drugs online? // LOL
I: No, mum. I am on steemit. I post content and people can upvote it and I get paid.
Mom: You have not invested anything?
I: Nope
Mom: That’s too good to be true. You must be kidding.
I: I am not.
Mom: That sounds awesome. Really?
I: Really. Steemit is the first possible mainstream usage of blockchain technology. Fully decentralized and without censorship. And lots of other advantages… there are three tokens: steem, steem power and steem dollars. You do not even know it is built on top of that blockchain technology at first sight,
Mom: Awesome but I do not understand. Why three currencies? And why not buy steem… dollars or whatever?
I: Okay mom, let’s stop here. If you are interested, I tell you everything you wanna know. Let me prepare some information. We will talk in a month, okay? When I’m here again.
Mom: Mhh okay. I think I will never understand the whole thing.
I: I hope you will. I do not understand everything either. But this doesn’t matter. You should inform yourself a little bit.
After thinking about that conversation…. I can state:
Blockchain technology is far away from mainstream adoption. Most people including my mom are not familiar with the terminology of cryptocurrencies and do not know anything about blockchains.. Not even their names. Maybe they heard of bitcoin but most don’t understand it completely. What they need is…. simplicity. Steemit is perfect to show people blockchains do work and have a value. My mom got very excited when I mentioned steemit. Cryptocurrencies are the future. I don’t know if it will be Bitcoin (pretty sure NOT if they do not hard fork for block size), Ethereum (pretty possible if anonymous transactions will be possible and POS works) or Monero or even something like ZCash that will dominate. But I strongly believe blockchain technology is the future but it will take some time. It will be a long way to mainstream adoption.
