It’s past noon on the last Sunday of 2024, I’m about to leave for town to shave, and I decide, why not try to orange-pill my barber today! Seems like a good idea, so I don my extremely orange BitBiashara T-shirt and I head off. 20 minutes later, I’m seated in the barber chair, a bit uneasy, not sure what will happen if I introduce the Bitcoin topic. I count three, two, one and swiftly ask him, have you ever heard of Bitcoin?
Since time is of essence and I currently don’t have the muscle for storytelling, allow me to break down the course of events in a simple list form
- I ask if he knows what Bitcoin is.
- He says he’s heard of it, but he also says he gets many invitation links to join a lot of these online projects which end up being scams
- I tell him Bitcoin is different. Unimpressed, he chuckles, and says he’s just very weary of ‘vitu za online’ (online projects).
- I tell him bitcoin is money and ask he lets me explain, which he agrees to.
- I go on a long rant explaining Bitcoin to him while he shaves me.
- He counters with stories of scams and pyramid schemes
- I reassure him bitcoin is different and offer to demonstrate by paying him using Bitcoin, after which he’ll receive the money in Kenyan shillings
- When he’s done shaving me, I pay him through Tando into his M-Pesa till number.
- He’s impressed, he says he now believes me, he asks how he can join.
- I tell him, “I don’t want you to join immediately. Instead, go and study what Bitcoin is before you invest”
To be honest, this conversation went way better than I expected. I left the barbershop thrilled about my successful pitch, but also, I walked out with a number of lessons which resonated with earlier observations made while trying to orange-pill other people.
Firstly, many people today have been exposed to countless scams and pyramid schemes, which are often prominently shared in social media platforms. These shady projects have distorted their view of any investment opportunity originating from the internet.
Most can’t even differentiate pyramid schemes, scams, betting sites, forex and cryptocurrencies. All these things fall under one category to them, a category they choose to be weary of.
Secondly, many people don’t understand inflation or currency debasement, and if they do, they can’t comprehend how impactful it is to their financial livelihood.
One point you must use when explaining Bitcoin, it’s the idea that governments can print more money without adding any commensurate value to the economy, consequently making the money we already have to lose purchasing power. And unless you bring in the price of bread over time, they won’t get it.
Thirdly, most people will not be intrigued by Bitcoin until you mention that the price of 1 Bitcoin has moved from less than Ksh 40,000, ten years ago to Ksh 13 million now.
And not just that, you have to specifically say, ‘If you bought 1 Bitcoin 10 years ago, with 40k, you’d have Ksh 13 million today”. The moment you say that, they start asking good questions; where does someone buy? Can I start with Ksh 1,000? If I buy, can I withdraw my money whenever I want?
It’s not ideal that people base their interest on the price because they’ll miss the whole point of Bitcoin: It’s not just an asset that multiplies our savings, it’s an asset that frees us from the current debt-driven, inflationary financial system. However, people are intrigued by anything that would make them crazy money with little effort. It is what it is.
Fourthly, until you demonstrate that someone can ‘withdraw’ their money from Bitcoin whenever they need to, you’ll have done zero work in orange pilling them. In fact, I’m very grateful that we have Tando in my country which helps convert BTC into Ksh and deposits the money directly into M-Pesa, the most dominant money transfer system in the country. It made my work infinitely easier.
My barber looked unimpressed the entire time I pitched Bitcoin to him. But when he received the M-Pesa payment notification, he smiled, and he laughed, and he started asking excellent questions. He realized I wasn’t bluffing.
Lastly, it’s very necessary that people understand that, them investing in Bitcoin does not benefit anyone but themselves and that they need to spare some time to study it so they can invest in something they understand.
Personally whenever I’m pitching Bitcoin, I tell my audience not to invest in it immediately an instead spend the next one week to learn about it through YouTube, because video is fun to watch.
I don’t do this as a cautionary strategy. I do it because I discovered Bitcoin in 2014, but did not bother to study it for the next 8 years even while trading it, and hence lost one of the best opportunities to achieve financial freedom at a young age.
So I’m certain if anyone starts investing in bitcoin without prior study, they will crumble at the first market bear run, and miss out on the real opportunity that Bitcoin offers.
Damn, that was fun. Looking forward to my next pitch.