Want to know what others are thinking about cryptocurrency? Until 2 weeks ago, I didn't know what a cryptocurrency was. I watched a video with 
I heard of bitcoin years and years ago. I heard that it was a form of virtual money that people made to buy and sell things online. I thought it was the dumbest thing I had ever heard. I thought, that isn't going anywhere! Why would anyone put real money into fake money...absurd!
When I told my father-in-law about BitCoin and Steem, he told me, "Why not just use real money?" I told him it was a cryptocurrency. He said, "What's that?!"
The common thread among people who have never been introduced to the words cryptocurrency and blockchain is the words sound mysterious and the first reaction is to turn away. My main point in putting this out to our community is to find better ways to explain these 2 terms. I have now done weeks of research and understand to some degree how it works and am thankful I did my research. (I found my brother was buying cryptos and selling them but didn't know what they were and why they were important. He just saw the value increasing and got in to ETH at 120...)
This is how I think we can better explain this thing we call cryptocurrency:
When America first started, groups of people came up with a common money system. Even each state had their own money. They had to exchange, or trade their money for the state they wanted to do business in until we had the American dollar in common. It wasn't odd for a community, even to have their own money. Cryptocurrency is money for the online community with a twist. Crypto just comes from the currency being encrypted, which means it is safe-difficult to hack!
After I have explained this to many people, they get it. It doesn't have a negative connotation. Even 
"Blockchain" is not as easy to describe in layman's terms, in my opinion. It's still somewhat difficult to wrap my head around it, but this is how I explain it when it comes up (I usually don't even mention blockchain until they find the word):
A block chain is just a long string of transactions on a ledger. It is a way to make it extremely transparent that one user gave currency, or money, to another user. It's a way to know from beginning to end where the money started and where it ended up. It doesn't reveal your identity, it just reveals the encrypted identifier.
I hope I'm explaining this all correctly. These are my thoughts on the matter and I've seen people go from "That's ridiculous!" and "Don't put any more into it than you can lose." to "Huh, that's much better than I though it was. I could see value in that." I personally think it will change the world, which is why I'm putting money into it. I'm still not set on how Steem's value will grow with a set inflationary rate unless that rate decreases over time, but for now, I'm in it for the long haul.
Thanks for reading!
