Bringing Bitcoin to the Masses, via Social Media Earning Platforms

Hello everybody. My name is Sam, but if you’re an original big block gangster who visited Yours.org back in the day, you might know me as Bitcoin Optimist. I wrote quite a few articles there as a proponent of big block scaling, and as it relates to this speech, about bringing Bitcoin to the masses.

Ever since I came across Bitcoin in 2013, this is what I’ve wanted to see. I wanted to see potentially the best form of money to ever grace our earth become widely used throughout society. I wanted to see your funny friends; your Twitch streaming neighbor; your yoga instructor; your story-telling sister, and do-it-yourself dad, all using Bitcoin.

Because to me, money issued in an automatic transparent way that preserves privacy but retains records is revolutionary. Add on the programmability, instant settlement, trivial cost, global reach… and I was sold. What can I do to help?

Originally, it was just telling people about it. Then, once the, “community,” turned small-block and eliminated the utility of Satoshi’s invention, I did my best by writing articles to promote the alternative. Obviously, I didn’t have much of an effect.

So, during 2018, after failing to land the marketing gig at Yours.org, I decided I still wanted to advance my agenda of bringing Bitcoin to the masses. I enrolled in a full-stack developer bootcamp for this purpose.

And boy was that experience something else. I struggled throughout the class; unsuccessfully tried to build my vision with a few classmates; and gave up coding for a while once that fell through. I wrote a how-to-eat-healthy book in the meantime, and after finishing that, I coded the dice game Yahtzee before getting back to my Bitcoin micropayments vision.

And it’s come a long way since I began. It even got me 3rd place in the recent HandCash Hackathon… Now what is this vision? It’s what I like to call, a Social Media Earning Platform. Or SMEP for short.

Now listen up if you’d like to know more about it.

Much like any other Social Media Platform, users post content, comment, upvote, follow and do all that social media interaction jazz. On an earning platform, you link each action to a small micropayment that is sent automatically from one party to another, peer-to-peer, and add in direct tipping — plus paywall purchasing — for additional earning power.

People already have the natural inclination to share content with their existing social media following, and these monetization methods further incentivize them to do so. But how do you get non-Bitcoin enthusiasts to participate and send money to others over the internet? How do you get the average everyday person to send a “$.10 like” to someone?

The answer is, the content itself.

To quote someone I think we’re all familiar with here: “What people don’t seem to understand,” is the average Joe is not going to send a “$.10 like” to someone unless they truly appreciate the content. It has to benefit them in some way, whether it be from enjoyment stimulation, or by simply being useful to their lives. Only then can a micropayments-based platform burst through the crypto bubble and find its way to a mainstream audience.

So what I’ve done, is laid most of the coding foundation for a variety of THEMED platforms that would appeal to the average everyday person, depending on their interests.

Your do-it-yourself dad, can post his “How-To” teaching tutorials on the earn-and-learn platform.

Your Twitch-streaming neighbor, can interact with fans and post his or her YouTube videos on the gaming platform.

Your Yoga instructor, can post her tips and instructional videos on the health-and-wellness platform.

And that aspiring author you call a sister, she can earn income from her creative side by telling stories on the writing-based platform, StoryDrafters.com.

By tailoring content creation in this manner, the platforms become appealing to the non-Bitcoin enthusiast. It also enables a niche-based, narrower marketing focus fit for strategic planning and promotion, and produces the conditions ripe for virality over the internet. More specifically, by steering users into creating content that is entertaining, useful, or awe-inspiring — and integrating it with the major existing social media networks — you’ve just maximized your chances of hitting viral gold. At least according to Contagious author, Jonah Berger, that is.

And hitting viral gold with the massive usage and awareness it brings to the platform, is ultimately a main goal for an entity like this, and how the business itself becomes financially successful, and successful overall.

Now let’s get to the business side of things.

The platform carries the crypto tradition of eliminating the annoying, ad-based business model of the existing internet, and earns its money in a drastically more efficient, user-friendly, and direct way.

Now the way the business works, is the poster pays the platform a spam-filtering troll-toll to post a piece of content, and then from that point forward, receive 100% of everything they earn from it. Every comment, like, paywall purchase, and direct tip from other HandCash users will be sent solely to the content creator’s own wallet, without us ever dipping in. The business itself takes no cut on these particular Blockchain transfers.

And what a differentiating factor that is. To be a platform that actually enables content creators to instantly earn and receive 100% of their income, directly from their audience without middlemen involved, is one heck of a competitive advantage. Just take a look at what percentage cut other companies charge their creators. Competitive advantage… Unlocked. And only because we’re using Bitcoin and harnessing its unique micropayment capabilities. Now THAT, is decentralization at its finest.

But getting back to business, besides earning revenue by charging to post, a platform can also front-load cash-flow through the subscription-based business model, by enabling “membership purchases” that offer certain perks and benefits to those who hold the exclusive “Member’s only” title. Initially, the purchase removes the troll-toll and makes it free to post content, and from there, the offerings can evolve.

Another line item on the business income statement can come from tips and donations from the platform’s fans, as well as relevant non-tacky paid promotions over social media — once the platform becomes popular enough. But when it comes to the website itself, pop-ups and big banners are forbidden. We don’t need them anymore, and they muddy up the UI/UX to make for an unclean and inferior user experience.

And since the user experience is meant to be positive, and our goal is to bring Bitcoin to the masses, there will be categories where the cost to post is free. A user can create their HandCash account, and instantly start receiving Bitcoin from other HandCash members by posting within the free categories. Categories that welcome them to the community, and prompt them to participate.

In addition to these prompts that stimulate user acquisition and retention, a few other gamification measures have been built-in to aid these efforts as well. The platform includes a hall-of-fame page that adds some friendly competition to the mix, and an in-sync accounting system to display a variety of statistics within each user’s profile page. Statistics they can watch rise over time.

Most importantly though, when it comes to the actual marketing strategy, the strategy is Social Media based. It’s engaging with the audience over it, being welcoming, growing a following, remaining consistent, retaining an image, launching promotions, inviting popular creators, sharing user contributions, pursuing publications, and doing everything else possible to get people to visit our domains, interact with us, and just get them talking.

What I just described to you, is MY job after the coding checklist is complete and the platforms are set for a simultaneous launch. The sales, marketing, and user acquisition aspect of the business is the entrepreneur’s job at outset, and that job is mine. I’ve got something to prove there, and I look forward to putting my communication and strategic skills to this ultimate test. Competition is in my blood; leadership I learned through experience.

But right now, I’m leading no one. Aside from some code reviews with friends, this project has been built by me and me alone. This cannot persist forever though, as a concept like this can only be successful with a solid team behind it, and I will not have the time to do everything once the platforms launch. At that time, my focus needs to be redirected to building the business, and the coding baton needs to be handed off to someone much more talented and knowledgeable than I.

I WILL need development help.

So, when I have finally reached the point in the code where all essential functionalities have been built and I can wow the world with what I’ve accomplished, the pursuit of capital and additional help will begin. The team can expand at that point, and align with me on my quest to bring Bitcoin to the masses, through the Social Media Earning Platform concept. I hope for your support in these efforts.

Thank you for your time. Feel free to get in touch after the conference.