Bitcoin Forum

Awhile back, Groupon had a contest and customer who lived off of nothing but Groupon for an entire year.  He went around the country using different groupons and when he couldn't use them he relied on the groupon fans for help.

I think if the bitcoin community did something like this it would bring much needed good publicity and public awareness to bitcoins.  I also think we'd see a rise in bitcoin worth, and with more people hopefully more stability?

Do you think the community is established enough for one person to succesfully live off of only spending bitcoins?  Either staying in one place or traveling across the country/world using only things purchased with actual bitcoins?

What are everyones thoughts on this?

I like the enthusiasm, but I would say don't bother.

1) We need oxygen too
2) good ideas sell themselves
3) do you want bitcoin to look like groupon?

I like the idea, but I don't think it would raise awareness.

Most people haven't heard of Bitcoin. Groupon grew so fast many people heard about it, and the company was making money, so they could afford the marketing ploy.

Someone living off Bitcoin would be a great confidence booster for people judging the currency, though. They could blog at LivingOnBitcoin.com, for example, showing their Bitcoin buying experience each day.

I bet a company like bitinstant would go for the publicity, however that might not work with there move towards the debitcard.

If you could link to the thread or pictures of "plato" or whoever that did this I'd be interested, I'd never do it but it seems like something I'd love to get some popcorn out for and watch :)

Plato drove across the US last year, but I think he did a lot of exchanging Bitcoins with people along the way.

At this point, someone could probably live for a year by solely purchasing products with Bitcoins.  But it would require a massive amount of travel in order to not be boring.  One idea would be to find someone with one of those unlimited airline passes to do it.

Imagine a road trip like this:

When the trip started, the cost for gas on the east cost was 4.0 BTC.  When he arrived in L.A., gas cost 0.2 BTC.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmr2hhcRiX1qfrvjzo1_500.png

 - http://www.bitcoinmoney.com/post/6501258333

Yeah, but he started with a car worth 4000BTC and ended with a car worth 200BTC :-)

(Numbers completely made up)

Yes, Plato did this in fact he introduced me to bitcoin.

I don't think you can live for a whole year on drugs and exhaust-dried strawberries alone.

if its not purely a publicity stunt you run the risk of starving to death in most of the world.....

it might be ok in usa or canada but even there id bring some cash as well 

I'm willing to support this Idea by offering care packages for bitcoin.

With all the fine stuff that is in a care package.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-S1207-502%2C_Inhalt_eines_CARE-Paket.jpg

Surely you didn't just say that you don't know how to do a search on this forum or how to Google Plato+Bitcoin, did you?

~Bruno~

Honestly I think you'd starve. But that would be PR in and of itself. :-)

The starving to death part is silly. I have a friend who has lived without money (yes, you read that right) for over a year and he has hitch hiked from Finland to Africa and is currently somewhere in Europe. He literally doesn't have a penny and he did it voluntarily. He doesn't have a credit card nor does he have a bank account. This dude has a master's degree in business studies and he used to be an active enterpreneur, then he just grew tired of money. He does have some bitcoins (lol) because I donated some to him. Not sure if he has ever used bitcoins though.

Regardless, my point is that even people without any money don't generally starve in developed countries. People are generous and even without money you can be friendly and help around with all kinds of things, thus in a way you'll pay for it. There are people who do this all the time, they couch surf and hitch hike and they'll dive food from the trash bins. I haven't heard of a single case where they actually starve. In developed countries people are massively more likely to die because they eat too much, not because there is nothing to eat.

So, doing this with bitcoins in developed countries, with Internet access, I'd say it's child's play compared to what kind of challenges some people give themselves. If I wasn't so busy developing my Bitcoin businesses I would actually be interested in doing something like this.

Yeah, but "oldschool" is in California. He's gonna starve to death.

Well I was being silly, but spending a year homeless and begging while being a BTC millionaire is a pretty funny idea none-the-less. I think perhaps the OP should be rephrased to see if someone could make all the transactions they needed to make in a year with only Bitcoin.

There are enough Bitcoin users in the developed world that this can definitely be done. Easily. You can buy anything through a person who accepts bitcoins, so you could use other people to acquire whatever you would normally acquire.

It would require announcing the whole thing, setting up meetings, figuring out which user lives where (and is willing to help). Etc. But it's not that difficult. It could actually be a lot of fun and educating and it could bring good publicity.

Perhaps along the year long journey more and more places accept Bitcoin directly which would be awesome and would make an awesome documentary.

I know where to buy MREs for bitcoin, and MREs are awesome

There could even be a bitcoin house, of for better PR effect, there could be the travelling bitcoin group. To be environmental friendly, they should walk, run or use a bicycle. Then they could spread the bitcoin gospel everywhere, and they could make appointments with people who would help them out with supplies and housing during the trip.

They could have a website were they put films and stories about their adventures.

I was just about to snap back and say "do a search on bitcointalk.org for plato, the only result is this thread" because when he was first mentioned for some reason that was the only result coming up, but I just did another search and found some of the threads.... thats weird?  I guess the forum search only searched the current board and child boards not the entire forum?

The simple forum search at the top right is context sensitive. If you have a thread open, it will search within the thread. If you have a thread list open, it will search within that specific subforum and child boards. If you have forum overview open, it will search everything.

I doubt I'd ever attempt something like this any time soon, but I really like the idea. I'm guessing it in principle excludes exchanging BTC for fiat paper or using a BTC debit card to pay merchants accepting only fiat.

I would be willing to do this and plan on getting as close to this soon.

But only after BitInstant comes out with their Visa card and billpay.

Then I will have every paycheck converted automatically to Bitcoins and go from there.


Not all that exciting though.

This is the approach I would take with a proper white-hat marketing campaign to boot.

~Bruno~

Eventhough with the much anticipated arrival of bitinstant's mastercard living off bitcoins will be a peace of cake for anybody,

the oubkic is still unaware of that possibility. --> Hence living a whole year off bitcoins will be easy as stealing a baby's dummy, it would still score the same awareness as without the card.

So lets bring it on! (bitinstant!)

It would be better if the person had to actually pay with bitcoins using a service like bitpay.com.  You want a beer?  You have to convince one of the local bars to install the application.

Someone starving to death for not being able to buy food with Bitcoin may raise awareness.

Kinda like monks pouring gasoline on themselves and setting themselves on fire.

We could all wear ribbons.