[meh_master]

> I am kind of embarrassed to admit that after all these years, I still don't understand Bitcoin. Not the underlying software and algorithms - but the concept, the system.

I don't either. Which brings me to a point, is it even intended for a mass audience and wide-spread adoption?

How could I explain Bitcoin to my mother for instance?

I'd end up down the rabbit hole just to explain the words and concepts used in the definition of Bitcoin...cryptography, private keys, wallets, addresses, miners, the block-chain, and on and on

[jontas]

The time I attempted to explain bitcoin to my parents I ended up starting with explaining how public key crypto works (to the best of my ability) and wound up dealing with so many tangential questions we barely managed to touch on bitcoin. I'm sure they took away almost nothing from an hour long conversation.

I think it is possible to understand bitcoin as a financial system if you have some background in financial concepts (my dad was able to pick up the open ledger concept pretty easily). But to understand the technical details you really need an implicit understanding of a lot of different technologies.