Two intro videos to blockchain:

1)Start with this 2 minute intro, showing more angles than money, and from a generally progressive (e.g. fair trade coffee) point of view: Understand the Blockchain in Two Minutes
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r43LhSUUGTQ

2) Can't find the Island analogy great animated summary, maybe another time, but, to dip toes into the pool a bit more this is a very good 6 minute animated (and prescient, from Fall 2014) summary:
The Bitcoin and Blockchain Technology Explained

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSP-taqLWPQ

Here's the third video below, most in depth, with analogy to actual Yap Island money system of huge stone coins, decentralized...after watching this you'll really GET what blockchain does and how it works (without bogged down in technicals)see:

3)[Yap Island Analogy to explain Blockchain]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNhpm9NMVXs

How the "distributed ledger" works is minutes  0:00 to 2:45

Minutes 2:45 to 4:40 is a gentle no-math overview of the "math magic"--yes you can distill War and Peace down to a  20 character "code" because if each character has 36 possibilities (26 letters and 10 digits) there are 36-to-the-power-20 combinations...which is more than 13 million times a trillion times a trillion..1 with 31 zeros..)that's NOT the math magic..it's other things, like being able to create completely different codes for "War and Peace" versus for "War and Peace minus one comma I removed" so you cannot connect the two code outputs as coming from related inputs...

He puts it all together the Yap island natives and the math magic..during 4:40-7:20 and you can stop there.. If you're curious about how Blockchain can make our airplanes more safe from crashing due to someone hacking into the software of the airplane, that's minute 7:20 till the end.
-Harel
Still Intimidated About Watching 10 MIN Animated Video above? Here's a 2:30 minute long animation also using the Yap Island analogy -- one by the Linux Foundation. But afterwards, please watch the above linked to (again here) 10 min one; because not only some tech details that General Public can still follow, but also more info missing from the 2:30 minute one like anonimity and other things that real cryptocurrencies use that the shorter version of the Yap Island analogy doesn't cover. [Then, even this 10 minute one doesn't mention ways in which some cryptocurrencies are better than bitcoin both in technical ways, and in matching-our-values ways..that would take a 3rd video or more..ask me]

  • Added Feb 2021: Blockchain Voting Explained For Beginners! (Pros & Cons) (Blockchain for Beginngers channel) A few parts are unclear, and this fellow among the BfB channel can speak fast, but also is well organized by section, including what, why, advantages, disadvantages.

  • Is a DAO better Than a Corporation? [ LLC or DAO ] and how do they compare with cooperatives(co-operatives)? 4/4/2022 quite good video, can start 2:00 minutes in -- 372,000 subscribers channel: CoinMarketCap (people behind the .com website with that name) I may re-write but for now, Rough and ready unpolished comments from Email I sent out a bit more background:
    1) You don't have to permanently trust it, you can (depending on the rules) get out

    2) You also don't have to permanently trust it in the sense that, if you're paid in some token or cryptocurrency, unless the (open source etc) rules of the smart contract forbid/lock-in-period, then you can exchange that token, etc, for bitcoin (and then into fiat currency) or directly into it

    3) Yes almost 6 years ago there was a big famous hack of a DAO, of the first(one of the first?first really big?) DAO... Keep in mind hacks are always a danger: like your bank being hacked and losing funds; your credit union being hacked and your private personal info/social security number or such, stolen, etc. Plus this isn't 6 years ago any more, that is, the industry while far from perfect(nothing is) still has much more experience

    4) First two minutes they include entrepreneur-worship type language but at 2:00 minutes and later they directly say how corporations are undemocratic, unfair, etc...they say it diplomatically but definitely, say it. So the nice thing about this video is it's not focused on technicals or how-to-make-money but on values/economics/democracy (probably 65%+ of the video's focus) and then they try to 'sell' the idea to any entrepreneurs watching that they might benefit from using a DAO structure for their next venture

    5) I'm not clear on what the (nothing to do with sexuality, despite the name, but for Web3 developers) "friends with benefits" DAO...Better known examples are DeFi(decentralized finance) DAOs and my opinion of those varies a lot...some are high-risk lending to high-risk individuals and paying high dividends, etc..others really do (somewhat)democratize access to credit.

    I think most DeFi as I've just described are not DAOs...the ones that are DAOs, my sense is I'd rate them as anywhere on that spectrum of bad to good that I just outlined...

    Off the top of my head (I may research more before posting to full lists) I can imagine a DAO for anyone whose work is entirely online or nearly so... Software engineers/programmers; electronic artists etc..and the DAO uses funds to market/advertise all of their skills, this sort of co-operative of independent contractors..and then the hard wired rules say how the funds are split; the rules could be 100% equally no matter how much work someone does/doesn't do (probably not a good idea) or 98% of the funds go to the person who did that contract, 1% split evenly among all worker-members, 1% for overhead(servers to run blockchains the DAO may use, e.g.)..probably not worth creating a DAO if it's 98% private...or third option, some numbers in between.

    DAOs may let people in a local community pool funds to buy unused lots for development for low income (say 3D printed :-) housing, is another off the top of my head.