{"id":414772,"date":"2025-12-21T20:42:49","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T15:12:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/a-holiday-guide-to-explaining-crypto-to-your-relatives-crypto-news\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T21:09:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T15:39:07","slug":"a-holiday-guide-to-explaining-crypto-to-your-relatives-crypto-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/a-holiday-guide-to-explaining-crypto-to-your-relatives-crypto-news\/","title":{"rendered":"A holiday guide to explaining crypto to your relatives – Crypto News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This is a segment from The Breakdown newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe<\/a>.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n

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\u201cI don\u2019t get it. I still don\u2019t get it.\u201d
\u2014 Tom Hanks, Big<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

At a holiday dinner last night, I was asked to explain crypto to someone who is so new to the topic they had not previously heard of Ethereum.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I did a terrible job.<\/p>\n

From attempting explanations of proof-of-stake, to smart contracts, to DeFi, to DePIN and then back to what a blockchain even is, I\u2019m certain I left my audience far more confused than I found them.<\/p>\n

It was a reminder that the best person to learn from is often just one step ahead of you on the subject, not 10 or a 100 \u2014 or someone that thinks about a subject twice a year, not every day.<\/p>\n

For example, the tech expert Ben Thompson, who mentions crypto in his Stratechery<\/em> newsletter about twice a year, explains why it matters better than any of the crypto experts who think about it daily.<\/p>\n

Thompson helpfully starts at the beginning: \u201cBlockchains are the idea that disparate groups can come to a consensus without any kind of centralized authority.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

That decentralization endows crypto with \u201call the qualities\u201d of digital goods \u2014 endlessly duplicable, universally accessible, easily distributed \u2014 and yet, \u201cit has scarcity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thompson thinks this is conceptually interesting because it solves a problem he encounters as a writer of digital newsletters: \u201cDigital goods are fundamentally hard to monetize because they are infinitely duplicable.\u201d<\/p>\n

In practice, however, he recognizes that crypto is mostly interesting as a way to send money peer-to-peer \u2014 which is why the case he makes for crypto is mostly about stablecoins.<\/p>\n

Stablecoins, he says, represent \u201call internet sort of things\u201d that he finds interesting \u2014 a universal ledger, scarcity, fast transactions \u2014 and none of the \u201cdownside\u201d things: \u201cthe pure speculation on a coin going up, the wild swings in value.\u201d<\/p>\n

Net-net, \u201cwhat you end up with [with stablecoins] is basically this currency that operates like the internet.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the definition I needed at dinner last night: Crypto is a currency that acts like the internet<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thompson also explains why this is useful for the kind of fintech businesses he often writes about: \u201cIf you want to set up some kind of financial entity, you don\u2019t have to build out the backend to track everyone\u2019s finances\u2026you can just build it directly on top of the blockchain.\u201d<\/p>\n

This allows fintechs to \u201coffload\u201d all the difficult parts of finance to a blockchain: holding money, reconciling accounts, keeping a ledger of transactions, and \u2014 perhaps most importantly \u2014 establishing trust.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get all that for free with blockchains.\u201d<\/p>\n

My neighbor at dinner \u2014 a real estate guy \u2014 would surely have seen the appeal in that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thompson\u2019s explainer, offered way back in 2024, feels even more relevant at the end of 2025: Token prices are down bad, but traditional finance companies \u2014 like Stripe, BlackRock and Visa \u2014 are increasingly excited about offloading parts of their business to blockchains.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thompson\u2019s podcast will help you explain why.<\/p>\n

A Medium post from 2013 offers the most accessible introduction I\u2019ve seen to what Bitcoin is and why it matters \u2014 and your best chance to explain it to beginners over the holidays.<\/p>\n

The author begins on a park bench, using a simple apple exchange to illustrate the core purpose of blockchains: making digital<\/em> apples behave like physical ones.<\/p>\n

These blockchains, he says, \u201clive in everybody\u2019s computers [where] all the transactions that have ever happened, from all time, in digital apples will be recorded in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result, sending one of those apples is \u201cas good as seeing a physical apple leave my hand and drop into your pocket.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also as permissionless as exchanging real apples: \u201cJust like on the park bench, the exchange involved two people only. You and me \u2014 we didn\u2019t need Uncle Tommy there to make it valid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Uncle Tommy is a stand-in for banks, of course.<\/p>\n

This setup makes for a deft explanation of proof-of-work: \u201cYou could participate in this network too and update the ledger and make sure it all checks out. For the trouble, you could get like 25 digital apples as a reward.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It explains the idea of scarcity, too: \u201cIn fact, that\u2019s the only way to create more digital apples in the system.\u201d<\/p>\n

With all that established, Bitcoin becomes far more understandable: \u201cThat system I explained exists. It\u2019s called the Bitcoin protocol<\/em>. And those digital apples are the \u2018bitcoins\u2019<\/em> within the system.\u201d<\/p>\n

This makes crypto money near-infinitely divisible and near-instantly sendable. To anywhere, no permission required.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not all that blockchains can do: \u201cI can even make other digital things<\/em> ride on top<\/em> of these digital apples! It\u2019s digital after all. Maybe I can attach some text on it \u2014 a digital note. Or maybe I can attach more important things; like say a contract, or a stock certificate, or an ID card\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps disappointingly, crypto is only now \u2014 12 years later \u2014 starting to put stock certificates and ID cards on blockchains.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But now that it\u2019s finally happening, you should be ready to explain how and why it is.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the classic movie Big<\/em><\/a>, Josh (Tom Hanks) is promoted from data entry to vice president of product development just two weeks into the job \u2014 all because the CEO is captivated by his childlike wonder for the toys they make.<\/p>\n

Josh jumps straight to the top because he has the unfair advantage of being a kid trapped in a man\u2019s body \u2014 this gives him insight into the company\u2019s toys that no toy expert can match.<\/p>\n

In a high-stakes product meeting with adults, he responds to a pitch for a toy building that transforms into a robot as any kid would: \u201cI don\u2019t get it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

After the marketing data is explained to him, he shrugs, \u201cI still don\u2019t get it.\u201d<\/p>\n

His childlike line of questioning and reasoning then leads to a much better proposal: a robot that transforms into a prehistoric bug.<\/p>\n

Josh\u2019s method is not new.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Zen concept of shoshin \u2014 <\/em>adopting an attitude of openness, eagerness and lack of preconceptions when learning \u2014 dates back to the 13th century.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the beginner\u2019s mind there are many possibilities,\u201d a Zen master wrote. \u201cIn the expert\u2019s mind there are few.\u201d<\/p>\n

This might still be the best way to learn a topic as complex and often bewildering as crypto: Approach it with the open mind of a beginner.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, you don\u2019t have to spend decades becoming a Zen master to practice shoshin (or be a 12-year-old boy) \u2014 you only have to channel Tom Hanks.<\/em><\/p>\n

The next time someone explains a complex crypto concept to you (like auto-deleveraging or quantum resistance, to cite recent examples), don\u2019t think you have to immediately understand.<\/p>\n

Instead, say, \u201cI don\u2019t get it.\u201d
Then, after a second explanation: \u201cI still don\u2019t get it.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the third or fourth response, you probably will get it \u2014 maybe even well enough to explain it to me.<\/p>\n\n

Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a segment from The Breakdown newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe. \u201cI don\u2019t get it. I still don\u2019t get it.\u201d\u2014 Tom Hanks, Big At a holiday dinner last night, I was asked to explain crypto to someone who is so new to the topic they had not previously heard of Ethereum.\u00a0 I did […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414774,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[230,225,221,227,226,228,229,60,223,224,222],"class_list":["post-414772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency","tag-brave","tag-coinbase","tag-crypto","tag-decentralised","tag-decentralized","tag-decentralized-exchange","tag-erc-20","tag-featured","tag-meme-coin","tag-robinhood","tag-solana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414772"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":414775,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414772\/revisions\/414775"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}