I think many people already know that fiat currencies depreciate and something like gold without the digging might be useful. I find people want to know more about the how than the why. If they understand a little more about how it works, they can build a bit of an intuition and can formulate their own opinions regarding whether they trust it or not (vs simply trusting another person that has an opinion on the topic one way or the other).
Of course, the hashing/nonce part is only one part of the mechanism and probably not even the most important part. However, it is where the bulk of the energy is used - most people have heard that Bitcoin uses a lot of energy and would like to understand that a bit better. I have other "parables" for explaining public/private key encryption, etc., but I was primarily responding to the parent comment.
>> That's a very human centric way of putting it
Humans are the ones assigning the value to this and they may be more likely to assign a higher value if it appeals to their sense of aesthetic. Solving beautiful equations sounds better than trial and error to many. That being said, I do think there is beauty in crypto - just maybe not in the nonce guessing bit.
Of course, the hashing/nonce part is only one part of the mechanism and probably not even the most important part. However, it is where the bulk of the energy is used - most people have heard that Bitcoin uses a lot of energy and would like to understand that a bit better. I have other "parables" for explaining public/private key encryption, etc., but I was primarily responding to the parent comment.
>> That's a very human centric way of putting it
Humans are the ones assigning the value to this and they may be more likely to assign a higher value if it appeals to their sense of aesthetic. Solving beautiful equations sounds better than trial and error to many. That being said, I do think there is beauty in crypto - just maybe not in the nonce guessing bit.