Explaining Bitcoin

I’ve had a lot of chances to talk with people about bitcoin in the last few months, and it’s definitely tough to explain.People always have an easier time understanding something if they can compare it to what they already know. It’s like X but for Y.I’ve been struggling to come up with comparisons people might be familiar with. Here are a few I’ve tried:

• Just like the web is an open protocol for publishing information, bitcoin is an open protocol for payments.

• Bitcoin will do the payments industry what the internet did the publishing industry. It will democratize distribution.

• The internet is decentralized and runs on an open protocol. This is what gives it resiliency. Bitcoin is also decentralized and runs on an open protocol.

• Git was a promising new open source technology, and GitHub made an easy to use layer on top of it. In the same way bitcoin is a promising new open source technology, and Coinbase is making an easy to use layer on top of it.

• Most people don’t run their own email server anymore, and trust Gmail or Google Apps to handle their security, backups, etc. In the same way people will stop running their own bitcoin servers and will trust Coinbase to handle security, backups, etc in a hosted environment.

I don’t feel like I have it quite right yet, but it gets a little better every time I tell someone the idea.