The Political No: Official Narratives Set the Tone
When I first told my father-in-law about my Bitcoin investment, he thought I had joined a cult or fallen for a scam. Many Chinese people his age feel the same way. Young folks might be a bit more open, but for older generations, accepting Bitcoin is very difficult.
The first reason is what I call the political no. In China, the official narrative is the only narrative. Mainstream media and official reports always tie Bitcoin to three words: scam, money laundering, speculation. Citizens are culturally accustomed to trusting the state. That label alone can kill any conversation about Bitcoin before it starts.
But there is a deeper reason behind this resistance, something I call the cultural no.
The Cultural No: Farmers Versus Hunters
In the West, especially on platforms like Reddit, you see the hunter gene. It is the WallStreetBets mindset: high risk, high reward, aggressive, chasing quick wins. We want to get rich quick and seize opportunities.
My father-in-law and billions of Chinese people are not hunters. They are farmers. China has thousands of years of agricultural civilization. In that civilization, the most important values are stability and predictability. Happiness and security come from order. Think of the 24 solar terms, the harvest in autumn and store in winter mentality. Everything must be step by step, organized, predictable.
Farmers extremely hate sudden changes. Sudden changes like drought or plague mean destruction. On Chinese TikTok, a very popular type of video shows a child returning home, no matter how high their status outside. The parents immediately tell them to watch the weather and bring in the grain before dark. That instinct is rooted in their genes. They lived through famine. If the grain is ruined by heavy rain, you are done.
So when I showed up with Bitcoin, something you cannot see or touch, something unpredictable in the short term, a farmer's value ranking says: worthless, not real like real estate, not even as good as a pile of tangerine peels in the yard.
A System Designed to Be Silky Smooth
There is another layer to this risk aversion. In Western countries, our whole system is DIY, do it yourself. We are individualists. We are our own tax accountants, our own retirement fund managers, and we fight with insurance companies ourselves. It is exhausting, but we value individualism and freedom.
China is the exact opposite. The system is designed to be extremely silky smooth and trust-based. You put your trust in one entity: the state. When my father-in-law pays with WeChat or Alipay, it is instant. He does not need to know how it works. His taxes are invisible, embedded in the prices of everything. His pension is automatic; the state handles it. He has never felt the pain of paying taxes or managing a retirement account.
So when I came and said, hey dad, buy Bitcoin, get a hardware wallet, protect your 24 seed words, be your own bank, not your keys not your coins, what did he hear? Terror. To someone used to a smooth experience and with farmer genes hating risk, this was awfully painful. I was telling him to be responsible for everything himself, and one mistake meant all his money gone forever.
Repackaging Bitcoin as Digital Gold
I realized I had been selling it wrong from the start. I had to stop pushing my Bitcoin and start speaking his language.
First, I stopped using the words coin and token. To a farmer, a coin means flipping a coin in a casino, gambling. Instead, I called Bitcoin digital gold. Farmers understand gold, and Chinese people love gold.
I said: you have worked hard farming your whole life and saved your money. But the bank keeps printing money. Because of inflation, in 30 years your 1 million purchasing power may be only 300,000. Your harvest, your lifetime labor, is being eaten away by this invisible bug called inflation. Gold can protect you. Bitcoin is the same, just digital gold. The total supply is fixed. It is more convenient. Its purpose is not getting rich quick. It ensures you do not fall back into poverty because of inflation.
That changed the conversation. He started listening.
The Grand Narrative: Following the Biggest Players
He still said it was too complicated, and maybe illegal. His pain point was: I do not want to touch something complicated and illegal, something for scammers.
So I used a grand narrative. My father-in-law, like many Chinese people, is not a black box gamer. He is obsessed with grand narratives and big trends. He may not care what car the neighbor got, but he definitely cares about what bill the US passed or what war is happening in the world.
I told him: do you think this is underground and illegal? Then how do you explain that the US government is now one of the world's largest Bitcoin holders? They seized tens of thousands of bitcoins from hackers and did not destroy them. They auction them like strategic reserves or keep them as state assets. And look at Hong Kong, a place you trust. Why is it actively competing to be a crypto global financial center right now? This is no longer a DIY project. This is a global asset allocation issue. It is already on the table.
The operational risks you worried about are just technical issues, like verifying authenticity when buying physical gold. Professionals can help. The key is you are not gambling. You are following the biggest players, even national level players, in global asset allocation.
I also showed him how in Western countries the media discredited Bitcoin as a scam while governments and elites were actually accumulating. That finally convinced him. Instead of mentioning divorce, he asked me, so, how to buy Bitcoin?
The Next Decade Belongs to the East's Farmers
The past decade of Bitcoin's story has been driven by the West's hunters. The next decade will be driven by the East's grand narrative farmers, because they are starting to get it.
Over a billion people share my father-in-law's mindset. They are savers, not gamblers. They are waiting for a big confirmation signal. They do not care about charts. They care if the national team has entered the field. They like gold and hard assets.
Now from Wall Street to Washington to Hong Kong, the signals are lighting up. If you think you are late to the party, remember my father-in-law and those farmers. The great savings wave driven by grand narratives is just beginning. Be ready, because it will be crazy.
Conclusion: Speak the Farmer's Language
The resistance to Bitcoin in China has both political and deeply cultural roots. To convince someone like my father-in-law, I had to stop talking about coins and self-custody and start talking about digital gold, inflation protection, and the grand narrative of institutional adoption.
When we speak the language of farmers, we can turn skepticism into curiosity, and even a staunch critic can ask how to buy Bitcoin. This is the beginning of a new wave of adoption, driven not by hunters chasing quick wins, but by savers seeking to protect what they have.