How to Explain Bitcoin to a 7-Year-Old | Hacker News Reader

How to Explain Bitcoin to a 7-Year-Old

medium.com

31 pointstonydiv44 comments

This fails to address the biggest question any self-respecting seven-year-old will ask:

"Why?"

Young kids always ask that, don't they!

I'd probably talk about trust, but there's no correct answer here. My guess is that Bitcoin was created because its creator doesn't trust the government.

> My guess is that Bitcoin was created because its creator doesn't trust the government.

Also privacy in private markets, so not trusting VISA/Mastercard etc to sell my transaction data [1].

Plus the decentralized value [2], so not trusting the bankers/finance industry who have a large influence on the value of state currencies in addition to the government.

[1] http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/05/the_publicpriv...

[2] http://paulbohm.com/articles/bitcoins-value-is-decentralizat...

Obviously the guy doesn't have access to any 7 year olds.

Besides being way (way way way way way) too long, it's way too complex.

Lottery, transaction, millions, security camera, online, indestructible, odds, all words that would need their own explanation in 7 year old terms.

This is just more bitcoin fluff trying to ride the buzz.

Well, I'm not sure about 7 year olds, but it's the first explanation of Bitcoin I've seen that I think my father may be able to understand. I'm going to link it to him.

I was going to send it to my wife - I think she could understand this better than how I've been explaining it. I don't know anything about kids.

http://youtu.be/Um63OQz3bjo

I agree that explaining people (be them 7 or 20 years old) what bitcoins are and what the fuss is all about is quite complicated.

Usually I just send people that video, but this explanation is pretty interesting (maybe not as effective as the video, though).

The room full of piggy bank analogy is IMHO a lot more effective and accurate explanation that this video which barely brushes how Bitcoin works. (I too have been explaining Bitcoin to people since 2010 while being deeply familiar with its internals.)

The video is good, but still complicated. The second I say, "your computer generates Bitcoins," people give me a funny look.

I hate these clumsy startup-ish videos(I wanted to type `z' at the end of the word but I remember the last night (US day?) post...).

"There’s a robot in the room that runs lotteries. Every so often, this robot randomly chooses a piggy bank in the room, and puts 50 coins in it. "

Is this true ? So saying if I'm a user of bitcoin, will I just wake up one day to find 50 coins added to my balance ?

Assuming you're a miner, yes. In order to a be a miner, you just need to install the program.

Yep maybe the analogy needs to be updated to reflect that :)

Yeah, I'm not sure how to explain it without making the analogy a lot more complicated.

Miners are people who pay (with compute time) to play the lottery.

Every 10 minutes some coins are dropped in a big dark pool and everyone interested in catching them play hungry hungry hippos until some lucky person gets it.

Because it is hard to see from the camera how many coins are there in particular piggy bank, there are working small permoniks (aka miners) with funny caps.

https://www.google.com/search?q=permonik&tbm=isch&tb...

Permonik randomly wanders the room and re-counts the coins in piggy banks. Always he erases an old number and writes his count on the piggy bank with marker.

The robot watches permoniks. He sees how fast they are and if they count well (their counting is equal the majority of other permoniks for given piggy bank). The lottery rewards fast and honest permoniks with higher odds of win.

There is one more thing. When doing transaction, you may leave a small number of coins (aka the fee) under the piggy bank. This is a reward for permonik as he visits the piggy bank for recounting.

Each permonik has a master and all his revenues go to master's piggy bank.

It's just a currency for Silk Road. That's how it is explained. As clear as when I always remember when I wanna understand how is it addicted to the real economy.

That's not true. Just because Silk Road is one of its main uses, there are many others. I think Bitcoins will do really well in gaming, small payments, and international trade.

I hope.

That explanation doesn't really explain how the coins are mined, but it I guess for a 7 year old, that explanation should be good enough.

What about the kill switch? http://www.loper-os.org/?p=1009

I love this line:

Some people are incensed by “hoarders” – not I. I don’t give a damn. At least Bitcoin hoarders never had to kill anyone to obtain their wealth, unlike those who control land and other natural resources.

This is pretty good, not sure about the lottery thing though, since not everyone is a bitcoin miner.

Thanks. I agree, it's not perfect.

How about: Anyone can place a security camera in the room, but maintaining one costs money. The lottery goes to the security camera operators.

Hm, it doesn't cost any money to gain access to the network though. Anyone can download the client.

I think the point is that mining costs a little bit of money in electricity, and mining is more effective the more money you put into it.

Yes, but it doesn't cost money to view the network's history.

To stay true to the analogy, I would include lottery tickets. However, I don't think this is necessary. The core concepts are explained.

>Yes, but it doesn't cost money to view the network's history, which is analogous to purchasing a security camera.

It works if you assume everyone who purchases a security camera makes their video feed/history publicly available for free.

But then only one person would need to buy the cameras, so why mention it?

If only one person has a security camera, his buddy can go in the room and mess with the money, and he can splice in fake footage so no one finds out.

If you want to stretch the analogy (you shouldn't) you should say a camera requires batteries to run.

Hey that's a clever idea. I love it.

As a (7 year * 4) old man, I dont really understand your explanation:(

How can I improve it?

> There’s a room that anyone can access. The room has security cameras that anyone can view, and every second of recorded footage is available online forever.

's/anyone can access/noboby can access/'

's/anyone can view/noboby can view/'

>Naturally, these piggy banks have coin slots, and everyone can see which coins are in which piggy bank.

's/everyone can see/nobody can see/' (Hide it == Show it)

> These piggy banks can never leave the room.

's/leave the room/leave to the light/'

>Then, I walk into the room with a ski mask on.

>> with a ski mask on.

Yeah, You mean it!

>Anyone in the world can see me on the security cameras, but not my face.

>> but not my face.

That's what we are paid for.

>“Who made the robot..?”

The same who made these schemes and manipulations to rule the crowd.

I don't quite understand your comment, mind elaborating?

Nobody knows what he works for. I mean mining. Is it for good things or not. That's the summary.

What do you think about my explanation?: Bitcoin: The Simplest Non-technical Explanation: http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=66

(Although, like the room full of piggy bank analogy, mine is only a partial explanation.)

So do I.

How do I create/get my own piggy bank with a key?

Good question. Anyone can sign up for a piggy bank outside the room. The robot also takes care of that :)

Bitcoin is a lot like quantum mechanics. Nobody really understands it.

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