After reading peer feedback for my “Why Bitcoin is Important: Digital Currency and the Future” presentation it became apparent that despite my earnest efforts I failed to clearly communicate the benefits of Bitcoin as a platform.  For my management presentations class at Ross I chose to present the topic of Bitcoin for a four minute persuasive presentation.  Since Bitcoin can be somewhat heavy and technical I used one expository slide to educate on the basics, then went directly into an explanation of how it can be used as a platform as described by Stripe and implemented by Ripple and Stellar.  Followed by that was a slide describing the overall benefits of Bitcoin and a conclusion with Alan Kay’s quote, “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”

Though maybe I could’ve done a better job distilling the overall message in my presentation, I think there’s an inherent challenge in trying to communicate and sell the benefits of Bitcoin protocol to your average person.  For instance, your average person doesn’t know or care about TCP/IP.  He only cares about the great benefits that the internet affords him like communicating with friends, making financial transactions online and sharing photos with the flattering mayfair filter.  Because of this, using the analogy, “Bitcoin is for money what TCP/IP is to the Information Age” is fruitless when trying to communicate benefits.  A better approach would be to describe the “killer app” that the Bitcoin platform enables: fraud prevention, micropayments, international remittances and financial inclusion.  These are benefits that consumers will be able to connect with and respond to.  These benefits will cause consumers to give a future with Bitcoin a second thought.  And by using this frame to communicate we can make a cryptocurrency slightly less cryptic.