If you don't want to die of laughter, sadness, boredom and don't want to lose all faith in humanity. I recently held such a presentation and the comedic value of the situation has made me want to share it. In the moment though, I wanted to chuck myself out of the window on the third floor. So let us jump right into the story.

A little bit of setting up:

I have had older people of higher standing ask me anything and everything about Bitcoin, how it works and so on. So one day I decided to show them how it all works. I assembled them in a room for a small presentation of 20 minutes. I will, to save you the details you probably already know or can Google if you really want to know, skip over the part where I talk about blockchain, proof of work and other fun stuff you can find and access on the internet. So let us jump into the part where they started asking questions.

So the questions begin:

Disclaimer: All names are changed and will be shortened to 1-2 letter expressions after first showing up in the story.

Me: Has anyone got any questions?

Susan: Do you have a Bitcoin wallet?

M: Yes I do. And I regularly buy stuff on the Internet.

S: Who accepts Bitcoin? I have never seen an online shop that allows Bitcoin payments.

Peter: I have. I think it is called Valhalla and you can buy illegal stuff there!

M: Yes you can. But there also exist completely legal Websites like FastTech or NewEgg. Not everything is illegal about Bitcoin.

P: Ok.

Frederic: I have a question. How does one acquire one bitcoin?

M: I mean there are several ways...

F: Are they illegal?!?!?

M: NO! You can mine it, buy it or even sell something for Bitcoin.

F: How can you sell something for just numbers? (note: Frederic is the oldest one of all present)

M: The same way you can sell something and the number in your bank account increase.

F: Hmmmm...

P: You said something about buying. How do I?

M: Go to Bitcoin ATM. Shove money in. Let it scan your QR code. Wait a bit. Bitcoin.

P: How do these ATMs work?(I find funny how as soon as you deal with a cryptocurrency peoples understanding of ATMs and having money in form of numbers deteriorates completely.)

M: wanting to cave in my skull with a chair Like any regular ATM. Money you put in gets credited to your account. (note: at this point I decided to skip how to turn Bitcoin into real money)

S: I don't know. This all seems like a scam. How can something so "decentralized" be stable?

M: Because you trust the longest chain of blocks. Basically you trust mathematic expressions and not people...I see I am losing her...Basically you only trust the transactions which had some very hard math thrown at them.

S: Fine.

P: You mentioned mining. How can you earn Bitcoin doing that?

M: Well... You can technically use your own computer. You download some software, connect your Bitcoin wallet address and just let it run. You will have a small quantity of bitcoin credited to your account.

P: Wait. Who pays me?

M: Well nowadays you gain most of the money from transaction fees, but finishing writing one block can create some Bitcoin

And as soon as I said that mining creates Bitcoin, shit really hit the fan. They all unanimously agreed that it is a scamming scheme and that printing money should be illegal for anyone but a bank. And I tried explaining to them that it is all based on math and such, but nothing worked. Looking back, I find it funny that a person can suddenly stop understanding a concept it so firmly grasped before as soon as you remove a central bank or any sort of human control.

If anyone asks you to hold a presentation about Bitcoin, you need to gauge your audience and how conservative their views on the world are. Nowadays my audiences have been easier to handle. But that was my first time explaining it to people who knew NOTHING about it. Hope my experience helps someone.

Cheers :)