How I explain Bitcoin to people

I've been trying to be a bitcoin evangelist and explain it to people that don't know what bitcoin is without coming off as crazy. This is watered down, but this is how I explain it:

When you store money at your bank, it's just a number in a database. What happens if something gets messed up or they set that number to 0? You're screwed out of your money.

Now imagine that that database at the bank is shared with everyone and everyone has a copy. No single bug or malicious person can set your balance to 0 since you have a copy of the database and all corresponding transactions.

That's really all bitcoin is. Take the technology that makes the financial system work, and distribute it amongst the people. This is really watered down, but the people I've explained it to have, at least, understood.

Overcoming preconceived misconceptions is a topic for another post.

Submitted October 22, 2017 at 11:37PM by Milge http://ift.tt/2zHhTuz