The struggle to explain crypto to newcomers
I think we’ve all been there. You’re at a family gathering or dinner party, and someone asks you to explain cryptocurrency. You start with blockchain basics, then jump to proof-of-stake, maybe mention DeFi, and before you know it, you’ve created more confusion than clarity. It happened to me recently at a holiday dinner, and I’m pretty sure I left my audience more bewildered than when we started.
Perhaps the problem is that those of us who think about crypto daily have lost touch with the beginner’s perspective. We get caught up in technical details when what people really need is a simple, relatable framework. It’s a reminder that sometimes the best teachers aren’t the experts, but those who are just one step ahead.
A tech expert’s clear framework
Ben Thompson, who writes about technology in his Stratechery newsletter, offers what might be the most useful explanation I’ve encountered. He mentions crypto only a couple times a year, but his framing is remarkably clear. He starts with the basics: “Blockchains are the idea that disparate groups can come to a consensus without any kind of centralized authority.”
That decentralization gives crypto what Thompson calls “all the qualities” of digital goods—endlessly duplicable, universally accessible, easily distributed—while still maintaining scarcity. He finds this conceptually interesting because it solves a problem he faces as a digital newsletter writer: “Digital goods are fundamentally hard to monetize because they are infinitely duplicable.”
But here’s where it gets practical. Thompson recognizes that crypto’s most compelling use case right now might be peer-to-peer money transfer, which is why he focuses on stablecoins. Stablecoins, he says, represent “all internet sort of things” that are interesting—a universal ledger, scarcity, fast transactions—without the volatility and speculation of other cryptocurrencies.
“What you end up with is basically this currency that operates like the internet,” Thompson explains. That’s the definition I wish I had at dinner: Crypto is a currency that acts like the internet.
The business case for blockchain adoption
Thompson also makes a strong business case. He points out that if you want to set up a financial entity, you don’t have to build the entire backend infrastructure. You can build directly on top of a blockchain. This allows fintech companies to “offload” difficult parts of finance—holding money, reconciling accounts, maintaining transaction ledgers, and establishing trust—to the blockchain.
“You get all that for free with blockchains,” he notes. This explanation would have resonated with my dinner companion, who works in real estate and understands the value of streamlined systems.
What’s interesting is that Thompson’s 2024 explanation feels even more relevant now at the end of 2025. While token prices have declined, traditional finance companies like Stripe, BlackRock, and Visa are increasingly interested in moving parts of their operations to blockchains.
Back to basics with Bitcoin
There’s also a classic Medium post from 2013 that offers perhaps the most accessible Bitcoin explanation I’ve seen. The author uses a simple analogy about exchanging apples on a park bench to explain how blockchains make digital assets behave like physical ones.
In this analogy, the blockchain lives on everyone’s computers, recording all transactions that have ever happened. Sending a digital apple becomes “as good as seeing a physical apple leave my hand and drop into your pocket.” And just like on the park bench, the exchange involves only two people—no bank or intermediary needed.
The post explains proof-of-work simply: You could participate in updating the ledger and get rewarded with digital apples. It also covers scarcity: Creating new digital apples happens only through this process. With that foundation, Bitcoin becomes understandable as a protocol where those digital apples are bitcoins.
This makes crypto money divisible and instantly sendable anywhere, without permission. But the author goes further, noting that other digital things can ride on top of these digital apples—text, contracts, stock certificates, or ID cards.
Adopting a beginner’s mindset
Maybe the key to explaining crypto effectively is adopting what Zen practitioners call “shoshin”—a beginner’s mind. In the movie Big, Tom Hanks’ character jumps from data entry to vice president because he approaches toys with childlike wonder, asking simple questions that experts overlook.
“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities,” a Zen master once wrote. “In the expert’s mind there are few.” This might be the best approach for understanding something as complex as crypto. You don’t need to be a Zen master or a 12-year-old—you just need to channel that openness and curiosity.
As we head into more holiday gatherings, perhaps the lesson is to keep explanations simple. Start with the internet currency analogy. Mention stablecoins as the practical application. And remember that sometimes the most powerful explanations come from those who are learning alongside you, not from those who’ve forgotten what it’s like to not understand.
