What I’ve learned by talking to normal people about Bitcoin.

Crypto, from the outside looking in.

When I asked my friend Liz, a public school teacher living in Louisiana and my very best friend since Junior High, what she thought young women might need to embrace Bitcoin, she said, “I see Bitcoin in the headlines and occasionally on Facebook. But even I don’t really get it, and it’s not clear why I should care about it. So, I’m not sure why my students should either.”

This sentiment is echoed by nearly every “normal” person that I speak to who doesn’t work in technology or finance. Yes, I’m making an incredibly lazy distinction in calling these people normal, because of course they aren’t normal. But for right now this word will have to suffice in capturing this impossibly large, diverse and multi-faceted population of Americans who are currently on the outside of the crypto movement.

Crypto Twitter, startup founders, VCs, tech journalists — these are the insiders. Their vantage point is radically different. Their point of view is exceptional. These communities contain individuals whose credentials can be extremely impressive, and so they dominate the discourse. Yet their understanding of crypto, its potential, and where it’s going feels warped compared with what the rest of America thinks. According to them, the world is primed for crypto domination. Maybe it’s not going to happen this year, but in the meantime we’re all running nodes and passing the lightning torch and pumped about BAKKT! And yes, there have been hand slaps for a lack of diversity and representation, but there are all-women blockchain panels now, okay?!

For the past year or so, I’ve been trying to understand, as deeply and with as much compassion as possible, what it is that people outside of this echo chamber think and feel about crypto. I’m doing this because I believe in the echo chamber, and because I’m committed to the vision of this revolution in money. And I want it for ~~~ e v e r y o n e ~~~. But in order to achieve that goal, I wanted to first just sit back and listen for a minute.

So, here are some things I’ve heard a lot from people who don’t have any Bitcoin or crypto assets.

(I won’t be offering any refutations to these comments, as they are abundant and often obvious. I also don’t want to make wrong the people who are feeling these things.)

I can’t afford Bitcoin.

They see the price of one Bitcoin trot out in the headlines, and assume that they need to buy a ‘whole Bitcoin’ in order to own any at all. This is such a common sentiment, and I’ve heard it said by very smart people. Bitcoin’s divisibility isn’t apparent, and many people aren’t even making it to Google to ask where or how to buy as a result.

Do we move to Bits? Or Satoshi? What’s the best way to position this new money so that it is familiar, but without all the old money baggage?

I’m intimidated by it.

“Ohhhhhhh, no, I’m not a technical person.” This sentiment is rooted in the feeling that this isn’t a thing for them. This is for smart people, rich people, tech people, finance people.

“What’s the benefit for me to put the work in to figure this thing out, when it scares me or makes me feel out of touch?” The feeling here is that the upside isn’t clear and that the cards are probably stacked against someone like them, anyway.

My personal Bitcoin journey had a false start in 2013 when I first heard of it, but couldn’t get my head around the concept of mining, and couldn’t move past it. I abandoned ship because I had frustrated too many kind people with my naive questions about math puzzles.

How do we strike a balance between driving literacy, and needing to show people what’s under the hood? People get on airplanes every day without understanding how they fly, is that how we should treat these technologies as well?

I tried to buy some but I got confused and overwhelmed.

“Why do I need to give my social security number?”

“What if I lose my password?”

“Will my bank close my account if they see me buying Bitcoin?”

“My accountant told me to not buy any.”

Related, “I don’t know where to start.”

Onboarding is a well-documented challenge and remains a significant hurdle well into 2019. An uncertain regulatory landscape is no doubt contributing to this, to the frustration of many small crypto companies (mine included). As issues in compliance, KYC/AML, tax law, etc. remain unsolved, it’s at the expense of our nation’s underbanked, who arguably need this movement the most.

Cool, sounds like Venmo.

Peer-to-peer payments already exist in the minds of many. Paypal and Venmo are frictionless for their purposes. The subtext is that their money, and its value, has always felt safe, so these digital financial platforms feel safe too.

Maybe the people that I’ve been speaking to don’t understand how their money moves, or maybe they don’t care, but the idea of controlling their funds is not one that I find resonates with Americans very often. Why is this better money, when my money is fine?

Taylor Monahan unpacked this idea with such clarity when she tweeted, decentralization is not the value proposition.

Ryan Radloff wrote an incredible article exploring this idea of a money evolution versus a money revolution, and goes into far more detail on this topic. It is definitely worth a read or three.

Bitcoin is for criminals

Depending on the day, the pendulum of the Bitcoin brand swings from criminal hacker masterminds to tacky nouveau riche. Illustrating the latter, Kyle Chaka recently wrote, “Cryptocurrency has evolved from a financial tool into something more akin to a Louis Vuitton suitcase, a Cartier watch, or a Jeff Koons sculpture.”

The last bull run flushed out much of the talk about Silk Road, but the unsavory association still remains a deterrent for many who want a very well-lit path for their money.

What are the values that this movement wants associated with its brand, and what will it take for them to be realized?

Bitcoin isn’t stable enough — it’s crashing, right?

Volatility makes for a great headline. Bitcoin schadenfreude is so tasty. Of course price action has both an enticing and chilling effect, depending on the direction, but the preoccupation comes at a cost.

Boosting stories about utility is critical, in moments of both crisis and joy.

How do we make crypto more human-centered, so that we can move away from speculation and toward benefits? I know Jack Dorsey seems to be thinking a lot about this as well.

Blockchain? :::tunes out:::

Nope I’m good on database chat, thanks.

Bitcoin represents an incredible opportunity for a more equitable and just financial system. Yet making the space feel more inclusive is no small task. Coinbase and Cashapp are both doing amazing things for accessibility, but there is still an astonishing amount of work to be done, and a continents’ worth of land to cover if we want the “outsiders” on the inside on this movement as well.

My opinion is that if we don’t address the issues repelling the people that need crypto the most, we will have squandered the opportunity of a lifetime. My company, Gracias, is focused on driving education and adoption amongst one segment of this population — young women and teens. We are taking stock of all of the questions I laid out here and more, like what would it need to look like for more young women to feel safe exploring and experimenting with crypto?

We’ll keep listening, and please get in touch if you are thinking about these same themes.