I agree, Senior residents take care of their grandchildren as their start up. Why invest in such a volatile environment . Also value of ADA is low and continues to be low. Between cents and 3 $. ADA for seniors hm…10 years is a long time for their age. Also ADA has a low value and community says, ADA is not that kind of coin we have higher purpose. What kind of a coin is it than? Cardano is not a charity organization.
Depends what you mean by senior. Crypto represents new technology for a future that will not resemble the past. The point of crypto is to take financial control out of the hands of bankers and corrupt government and transfer it into the hands of people. The need for such a shift is obvious to some, but not everyone.
It is a paradigm shift to benefit everyone, regardless of age. However, when it comes to new technologies, young people adapt most easily, middle aged people lag behind, and the older generations frequently struggle. Older people, as a rule, have progressively more difficulty understanding what the technology is doing, how it works and what it is good for. Young people tend to look ahead, towards the future and allow themselves to be guided by their hopes and dreams. Older people are prone to looking backwards, trying to make sense of the present with reference to a past that is no longer relevant.
All of this is to say nothing of cognitive decline. At some point seniors become overwhelmed by the complexity of the way we do things. They can no longer keep track of passwords and login protocols. They become vulnerable to phishing scams and other kinds of fraud. The crypto landscape has to evolve further before it is safe for seniors to experiment in this playground. As things are, it is far too easy to misdirect funds in such a way that they are irretrievably lost into the ether.
Crypto is attractive to anyone who is young at heart. Crypto elicits doubt and confusion in anyone who is fearful of a future that is inherently unpredictable and uncertain. Crypto is money for the future. Fiat currency is money of the past. At some point, understanding crypto will become a necessity of life for most people just as knowing how to operate a computer or knowing how to operate a smart phone has become a necessity for most people. When new technologies arrive on the scene there are early adopters (often predominantly younger) and holdouts (often predominantly older). However, over time, the technology, for better or for worse, changes the way we do things and drags the rest of us along.
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I think dedicated live events in the regions can help. These give room to them for 1 on 1 questions and can build trust more compared to online events
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Then I also would be appalled and deterred. One reason, as a Senior, I am endeavoring to create a welcome for other Seniors. It was a journey and I stumbled often on the path. My finger was close several times to making the scammer richer but a sixth sense prevailed. I have found in Cardano a nice community with science backed protocol. I think it might be the “safest” (all caveats applied) ecosystem for many and would like to be inclusive and welcoming to Seniors.
I am working towards an ELI65 language for educating seniors. Whether funded in Catalyst F8 I plan on proceeding
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Do you have a link for you’re ELI65 project proposal?
It’s an impressive and needed effort.
Extremely interesting thread .
I’m in the demographic discussed and a hodler of Eth and ADA (in minuscule amounts). I too would be interested in an educational vehicle for people like myself (who are open to new technologies but have a healthy dose of sceptical reservation). This reservation is what keeps my crypto dabbling minute. I took it to heart when advised to “invest what I could afford to lose”.
If I may, isn’t “unpredictable and uncertain” kind of the definition of “the future”? It’s not something to necessarily be fearful of. Humans are notoriously fearful of the unknown - hence the need for education.
I feel that trust is also a major stumbling block. World events, disinformation, scams, failed projects, biased and skewed (often errant) reporting have certainly caused me to re-evaluate my trust in certain institutions.
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Sumas, research has demonstrated that we Seniors learn and absorb data differently as we age. One comparison I can visualize, compared the Senior brain to that of an almost full hard drive. Seniors focus more and by nature let less info in.
This is one of the reasons I believe a different “language” for Seniors is needed. Thank for your interest.
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Michael, you touch on many salient issues with Seniors and crypto. One point as you mention how time and technology pulls everyone along- The UN has indicated the world population of Seniors will double in the next ten years.
We can either wait for the pull or we, as a community, can reach out and make the journey easier. My F8 proposal can be read here Community
Thank you for your thoughts and input!
I have quite a few seniors as clients that I offer assistance to for various crypto projects. I absolutely agree that seniors are an important demograph in Cardano (and the greater cryptocurrency ecosystem). Most of the seniors I work with have lost most, if not all, trust in legacy markets. The most common goal I have seen is around wealth creation and protection for themselves and their families who stand to inherit their holdings.
As we all know, Cardano offers secure and stable staking rewards with no lockup period. Staking rewards can mitigate some of the market fluctuations, or they can provide additional income for retirees to help with day to day living. Staking rewards are also a powerful tool when combined with a long term holding strategy. I, personally, believe that Cardano has a very optimistic outlook for 5 to 15 years down the road.
I never offer financial advice, and I believe that everyone should always do their own research and empower themselves with their own financial decisions.
That being said, I take tremendous care when assisting seniors with wallets and basic blockchain operations. Blockchain is incredibly unforgiving, and we all make mistakes along our learning journey. The risk of loss is greater for seniors, and they don’t have the time or resiliency that younger folks have to rebound from loss. It is incredibly important to establish and methodically use best practices when interacting with any blockchain, at any level of experience. Concepts of complete ownership and responsibility around financials are foreign to most investors. I spend a lot of time trying ensure these concepts are understood.
Folks also need to understand that keys, passwords, and seed-phrases must be managed appropriately. If you are managing your own wallets, there is no customer service to call, and no one to help you if you’ve lost lost access to a wallet. When everything is all said and done, there will be more funds lost to forgotten passwords, keys, and passphrases than to nefarious attacks.
I applaud you for trying to decrease the barrier of entry for seniors. If seniors want to invest in crypto-currencies, they should absolutely be able to. Sure, cryptocurrencies are volatile, but so are all of the global markets right now.
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Blocks Well with what you replied - how do you think Cardano4Seniors can assist your number one issues : wallets, Seeds and security? If I heard you correctly!
We are just funded by F8 in Catalyst and are bootstrapping. We have begun our research per our proposal and are beginning to develop our ELI65 language.
What do you think is most critical for Senior Risk Management, concerning DeFi and Cryptocurriencies?
Very interesting topic, with so many themes touched that would deserve a separate thread!
I think the three cornerstones of successful communication are: simplicity, consistency and honesty. In my experience the crypto community have space for improvement in all three areas.
In my understanding every generation of crypto is increasingly complex. Bitcoin being the most simple, smart contracts added complexity and PoS added even more. IMO simplicity plays a huge part of the continuing success of BTC. It’s not a question that Cardano is more complex than Bitcoin so I expect it to be harder explain in its completeness. Good news is that the main selling point over BTC - at least for me - is that Cardano is more sustainable, and I find that fact easy to communicate. I need to mention constant or at least deterministic supply. That is a pretty simple message and honestly, without that I would find it hard to differentiate crypro from fiat. Also smart contracts are very important but in my experience they are far from being a selling point for the demographics that are hard to reach. They also add huge complexity to the story and they are the most experimental part of the system.
Consistency: It’s obvious that for different people crypto means different things. For some it’s an investment opportunity, for some it’s store of value, for some it’s a currency, for some it’s an opportunity to try to improve society, for some it’s a scam but still uses it, and the list goes on. If we, the early adopters can’t bring our perspectives closer to each other, than we will have a very hard time to convince new demographics. We should also be rigorous about our own understanding. Statements like “we only need to trust mathematics” is not just oversimplified but also misleading and alienating. The truth is that we need to trust mathematics and the community - developers, people running pools and nodes, holders with voting rights, etc. - and people’s ability to recognize their own economic interests.
Honesty was already mentioned by @HeptaSean , and I couldn’t agree more. I believe people don’t use currencies because they understand them: they use them because they trust them. Overselling is an existing problem in the community. The promise of huge gains especially, but also how it will automate things, solve problems, make things more efficient etc. Transaction safety, deterministic supply and sustainability are the promises we can deliver. Everything else are possibilities. We also don’t need to be overly cautious. Cars weren’t more efficient than horses. Not even faster. The internet wasn’t effective for trading things. We needed 20 years for that. But look where we are. We need to be confident that the possibilities are there.
Elderly people are important, but so are people with low income, people with high income, women, politicians, everybody. I think there is a core to the message that we need to work on very hard, which then needs very little fine tuning for specific demographics.
I also need to mention that we should listen too. We should ask elderly people if they need something like this, and how they imagine it. In my experience they are pretty good at compensating any disadvantages they might have with experience and wisdom.
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Thank you and I agree with all four of your cornerstones. LISTENING is what C4S-Cardano for Seniors is working on now in the first steps of our mission. Listening, studying how Seniors learn.
Trust/honesty is key. Perhaps why US currency denotes “In God We Trust” in a system that demands separation of state and church.
Inclusiveness by nature is what DeFi should be about, no matter how your demographic is viewed or defined. Our mission is to educate Seniors about DeFi wrapped in an over abundance of Risk Management.
It is through comments and viewpoints like this that is helping to drive the focus of our project!
Thank You for your dedication!
I think the main question is “what elderly people can do with Cardano”, preferably things that they can not do otherwise. At fist it seems tricky, but at this point experimentation might come handy. Some attribute we usually don’t want to associate with money can become a source of a playful, light attitude toward something that is ours. Basically my idea is to present it as it is: “It’s an experiment to become a better and fairer money. Are you in? Do you want to experiment with this idea?”
I suppose a many elderly have some free time at their hands, and it might be a source of delight to spend this time on something promising and inspiring and new. It would naturally lead to the sane conclusion to not play with big amounts of money.
Another interesting question is how elderly people can help the Cardano project? How can they feel useful to such a project? How can they contribute? And that could lead to something important: to bring them together around a common objective, to meet new people, to have a common topic that is invigorating.
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yes we all need inclusion and have to preserve respect for our olders we all gonna be old at some point and we learn from their teaching i lost to my last savings last week and if i was not for my olders i will be starving
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Gadfly has provided some key areas: simplicity, consistency, and honesty and you added one more critical element: LISTENING so vital. We need to have our ears wide open to resonate in simple words how they view, feel, and understand any issues important to all Seniors including ourselves…for example financial, health, and economic challenges…Now we expect to outlive our parents (today’s medical technology allows us to extend our lives) and are more concerned NOT to outlive their savings nest…There are so many other topics to talk about but focus on the most pressing once…
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Boomers who plan to retire in their mid-60s to early 70s need to have enough money saved up for a decade or two more than they might have in the past.
Gadfly to your point I was speaking with a Chef friend who is living basically on Social Security and a part time job. Some savings but he will not tap into it until he cannot work. Smart, talented, disciplined and thrifty.
He scans all the weekly flyers and buys by sales. He may go to 6-7 stores per week to save and preserve his budget. I was amazed how tuned in he is.
My thought was how to make it ‘fun’ to shop for Seniors, and how to include it in our platform. And, besides DeFi how many other opportunities are there for Seniors?
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Yes respect and inclusion are key. And, to one of your other points- UN study projects the Senior ranks will double in the next decade.
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