Bitcoin Forum

Previously, the XMR community had strong consensus that marketing should to be deprioritized until the DB/GUI were done(ish).

Now we're seeing an outpouring of verbal (https://forum.getmonero.org/8/funding-required/329/translation-of-content-on-getmonero-org) and financial (https://forum.getmonero.org/8/funding-required/329/translation-of-content-on-getmonero-org) support for translations, etc.

Are we in danger of putting the marketing cart before the development horse?

Are translation efforts valuable for both development and marketing, as they introduce XMR to users and coders outside the anglosphere?

Let's clarify what has changed, and evaluate whether those changes justify a shift to higher marketing priority.

Looking back, 3 specific concerns were raised in concluding premature marketing is at best futile and at worst self-defeating:





All that was many months ago.  Is it still too Soon^TM?

This issues:

1. Database.  Official tagged and released client still consumes ~6GB of RAM.  But unofficial binaries and official source code use a paltry ~75MB.  More and better compilation tutorial videos are available (https://youtu.be/upX2SOZXYnk?list=PLSNOd7dPYo3d8RwBHem1_-jF9_2qBUKVB), and the unofficial binaries are from a well-known source.  Verdict: not there yet, but tantalizingly close.

2. GUI.  The webwallet (https://mymonero.com/#/) mitigates most of this issue, as do the four(ish) unofficial GUIs.  A compromise, wherein the core devs designate one or more 3rd party GUI wallet as 'Officially Unofficial' is coming into view.  Verdict: all systems go!

3. Multi-sig.  This requires research into new crypto-magic.  But crowdfunding for a part-time dev is going very well (https://forum.getmonero.org/8/funding-required/334/fund-a-developer-moneromoo-will-work-part-time-on-monero-for-260-hours-over-approx-6-months), gmaxwell has generalized ring signatures and made them do fancy new tricks (http://people.xiph.org/~greg/confidential_values.txt), and new services like xmr.to and shapeshift allow markets to use BTC internally while keeping XMR for the on and off-ramps.  Verdict: all systems go!

You can probably guess my opinion on this issue but I am curious to hear the opinions of others.

The last thing I want to do is upset the community by proceeding with some of my marketing ideas for China if lots of people think we are not ready.

Monero is a decentralized community where everyone is free to make their own decisions. However I still respect community opinions.

the database is the killer for now, but step by step   :-*

I'm optimistic about Arabic and Chinese translations, as there are plenty of brilliant underutilized coders in those countries, although the language barrier hasn't stopped our Russian (and Czech?) friends from participating in the fun.

I'm a little resentful and borderline bitter about so many XMR being thrown at FreeBazaar, without escrow and to the exclusion/insult of the underfunded core devs.

Our rockstar core dev/crypto-boss tacotime's participation rate dropped soon after the thread worked itself into a lather over FreeBazaar, which IMO is extremely regrettable:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=583449.msg10015296#msg10015296
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=583449.msg10015353#msg10015353

I don't have the right to question how others spend their perfectly (at both protocol and social level) fungible XMR, but will nevertheless raise the issue of when to evaluate ROI on that service-building endeavor vs the opportunity cost of platform solidification.

following

I think we need the database and the GUI before ...

I think the database is the dealbreaker for now, a lot of people aren't able to use the original wallet because of the amount of RAM it uses, probably almost everyone who is using a laptop and hasn't got the technical knowledge to compile not fully released software.

Mymonero is great and I trust them with my coins but for bigger adoption to occur Monero definately has to become more user friendly (grandma friendly).

About the "official" GUI, a lot of haters/sceptics complain about this and IMO there are enough good wallets but again there should be one that is "official" and user friendly.

I really like that Monero is growing up so nicely and I see it being discussed at more and more places.

Someone on TradingView sent me this link: https://getsatisfaction.com/tradingview/topics/add-https-www-poloniex-com-to-the-bitcoin-related-exchanges

Please vote for Poloniex to be added on TV if you are a TV member, I'd like to be able to chart Poloniex XMR on TV, now they only have HitBTC which isn't the most trusted exchange AFAIK.

I fully agree. The thousands of XMR dumped into that dice site also come to mind. The dice site swindle could've funded moneromoo 5X over.

Yah know, I'll just go on record saying it. Monero doesn't need an official GUI because we don't want grandma using it right now, and grandma can use mymonero. There are too many hardforks coming up that grandma isn't going to be bothered with. There's too many nuances considering its a completely different codebase than bitcoin. Right now, we don't want people cutting corners and ultimately putting the network's security at risk in order to make a few bucks (BTC SPV mining incident).

So yes, my vote is for "yes the world is ready" because the ones that are going to recognize what Monero is will take the time to figure out the CLI, how to compile the bleeding edge software, etc.... or they already know how to do this, which is even better.

Therefore, I consider "marketing" to be not to grandma, but to the whiz kid in China or some coder in some other part of the world. The world is ready - The uber nerdy technologically savy part of the world.

and to further snark on the freebazaar incident, im surprised people still mine on his pool.

Good call, I had mostly ignored and then promptly forgotten l'affaire Primedice.  So that's twice XMR boosters have been burned by supporting service build-out prior to platform solidification.

Your distinction between 'grandma ready' and 'uber nerd ready' is useful.  I submit that translation efforts be considered part of platform solidification, as XMR needs every whiz kid in China, every math genius in India, and every pro coder in Brazil we can get.  Not to mention a few semi-normal people like us to act as grunts, go-betweens, and ambassadors to the drooling masses.   :P

Has it occurred to you JR's soon to be famous 'Build Blackmarkets or GTFO' maxim implies we should ignore quasi-fungible, radically transparent Bitcoin (perhaps abandoning it to the Gavinistas and their spook/VC/redditard fanboy backers) and focus solely on Monero (gmax's CT notwithstanding)?


In any case, this paradigm should be used for Monero marketing (but not by core devs, to avoid MiB encounters).

I don't need Monero needs official GUI before starting to find investors as many guys want to be early adopter.
The masses need GUIs and all that good stuff.

Marketing ? LOL
no we never heard of it hahhaha

You guys are a day late and a dollar short.. I seen on my Canadian Tire receipt today something about CT-eCash
get it ?
Spoiler Alert:
The world is taking over Digital Currencies while Github Teens jerk off here at the forum.. year after year accomplishing nothing.

When are you guys going to realize unless you get everyone in the world involved your wasting your time ?
Hanging around Bitcointalk and the various Exchange Chat Boxes wankering on about your coin of the future is not smart.
Better check those exchange prices again (since that is all that matters)

Marketing comes with a final product .....

you talking no oficial gui for hundreds of forks comming.... haha ect... maybe you need help to dump your XMR at expensives prices

sure not good to promote with your own name something is not finished

price go down for XMR and is good.

We realized unless we get everyone in the world involved we're wasting our time when JR posted his "Only the Black Market Matters (https://bitcoinism.liberty.me/only-the-black-market-matters/)" manifesto.  If not sooner.

Good point about the exchange prices; XMR is worth $4.8 million.

I'm not sure with what to compare that number (a house on a decent golf course, a hobby winery somewhere nice?).

Using the start-up metaphor, $4.8 mil seems large enough to leave stealth/quiet mode and start making some marketing noises.

But the poll is running heavily towards 'not ready, wait for GUI/DB/SPV.'   :-\

Ok, we'll put you down for Option Three.  Thanks for voting!

Why is it so important than the Official GUI exit, when there are ~four unofficial ones, plus a webwallet?

What if the devs temporarily made one of the exiting GUI wallets quasi-official (Unofficially Official) while we wait for the exciting next-gen tech to be finished?

I wish someone had heavily marketed BTC to me back in 2009 when it was full of bugs and not the "final product" we have today.

Final product = much higher prices.

Some people actually enjoy being early adopters and spreading the word about bleeding edge tech. Those who hear about Monero in a few years when prices may be 100x higher than they are now probably will wish they heard about the "unfinished" product of today.

Besides there is no definition of finished product in crypto. Even BTC is still in beta. What I look for is steady development. Looking at github and the getmonero forums you will see lots of activity. Things are moving along nicely.

Good points.  Did you vote for Option One?

Yes I voted for option one. One problem with this thread is that the poll may be partially manipulated by trolls from other communities to serve their own purposes. Maybe we should have another poll in the getmonero forums and compare the results.

Troll participation is welcome and no problem at all.  We are finding out where they wish to concentrate their FUD attacks and to what extent they've been effective.   ;)

The troll-free getmonero poll already exists in the form of various crowdfunding efforts.    8)

We can launch a wallet branded "Monero Official GUI". That would do the trick.

Give it that title, but keep it as a CLI :D

Before marketing, I think XMR must have at least one direct fiat/XMR exchange.

Well unfortunately there is not one. Monero has two!

Which ones?

rumor has it there's actually 3:

and to clarify, I guess altquick is not an "exchange", its merely a place to buy Monero directly with fiat.

https://www.altquick.co/buy-2.php?coin=XMR

and apparently xstock.io, as indicated here: http://moneroinvestment.com/?page_id=19 , but it looks like XMR is not live yet

and there's a 3rd someone mentioned...

you have been marketing for 1 year now with your relentless hateful spam

It is not marketing what we are doing here.
Monero will attract crypto virgins with piles of fiat money.
Bitcoiners who are smart enough have joined in already, more or less. It is time to look for people who are not even aware of crypto and introduce Monero to them as the best coin ever made.

I think some issues need fixed first...

1) GUI wallet
2) Exchange support - having everything on 1 exchange is a real turn off for me. It looks kinda bad that even Crapsy does not have it listed. If it could be listed on BTC-e that would be amazing, but wouldn't hold my breath.

The database issue needs fixed, but GUI being the big one.

Regarding 1: I responded to another guy regarding this, will quote myself from another forum:

In addition: https://forum.getmonero.org/1/news-announcements-and-editorials/190/editorial-why-is-the-official-gui-wallet-not-released-yet



Regarding 2: I concur with you, however in the upcoming months 3 fiat <-> XMR will come online (one of them is very close to release). Furthermore, Cryptsy said they would add XMR with their revamp, which has an ETA of 1 September. Ofcourse most of this is currently speculation, but it gives some hope that in the foreseeable future the share of Poloniex (volumewise) will dilute.

Regarding bolded part (DB): A new tagged version, which will include the database, is close to release. NoodleDoodle did a lot of work in order to optimize the performance of the DB, see this commit for example -> https://github.com/NoodleDoodleNoodleDoodleNoodleDoodleNoo/bitmonero/commit/4de799e1a84f1b88b95b580a6abfa95dfeec547a

Partially disagree.

Yes, the smart (olde-tyme Bitcoiner) money is to a large extent already properly (cautiously) diversified into XMR.

But it's not yet time to approach crypto-virgins (IE dumb money).

One, because we need more tutorials, tutors, ambassadors, fiat portals, GUIs, etc. to lower the barriers to entry and learning curve.

Two, because we shouldn't skip the middle step between smart money and dumb money, which is hot money.  The hot money in Bitcoin (and Litecoin) isn't remotely aware XMR exists.  And we don't have the vehicles like GBTC/BTC-E/BTC38 needed to absorb it.

Three, dumb money follows hot money.  Once we get hot money aboard, they will do the dumb money marketing for us (so they can take their profits thanks to ostensibly greater fools).

Keep contacting the exchanges you just quoted. For the less tech savvy exchanges like Cryptsy we should have an XMR dev help them get set up

I agree with the general idea behind icebreakers post. Monero isn't ready for a widespread marketing push yet.

However, I have no problem with making it easily accessible to those with technical know-how and an interest in learning, but merely lack English as their primary language. To that end, let's keep up with the translations in addition to the core dev work that is already underway.

So far I think every single community member can agree on this. Crowdfunding campaigns to pay for translations into multiple languages seems to be helping

And transactions must be constructed using Edlin.   :D

there are windows users who might have the technical know-how in general.... but compiling yourself is another story... lacking english is not the problem... just give everythign its time and dont over hesitate

I am getting an increasing feeling that there is only one person with tor involved in XMR, which would make it the biggest scam in the history of mankind

I am getting an increasing feeling that there is only one troll bashing Monero with many alter egos, which would make the Monero trolling the biggest scam in the history of mankind.

Give me what you are smoking buddy ::)

Funny. I get this feeling that people make vague unsubstantiated claims without any evidence whatsoever. Like, maybe Bryan Williams is behind XMR and is just wearing a mask when he poses as the various Monero developers. Dude...do you filter anything or is just stream of consciousness from brain to keyboard?

https://i.imgur.com/E21fWA5.jpg

If you talk about FUD on a monero thread, you are highly delusional

Go to monerotalk.org please

Go to getmonero.org please. That is where the fun is at.

Oh, and take a look at the cool new task and funding system embedded in the forum. Perhaps then you'll be able to understand why this team doesn't release half-assed solutions just because you think its past time. ;)

----
Corrected

I dont think it is time to give much emphasis on Official GUI to be there, when there are many unofficial ones and a webwallet.

you can refer here much ,why there is not much need of official gui..
https://forum.getmonero.org/1/news-announcements-and-editorials/190/editorial-why-is-the-official-gui-wallet-not-released-yet

If the time is not now, every moment the time for marketing Monero is a moment closer.  :D

Hey papa, I think you meant getmonero.org

Would like to see a Monero faucet. That would be great

That definitely could help with adoption if used correctly

Crowdfunding it might be a good idea.

I bet it would be pretty easy to make. Any devs want to start a funding request on the monero forums?

I heard there's this cool crypto event in Amsterdam this week, this could be a great coattail ridingPR opportunity! Anything specific planned yet?

So how did the marketing went? You could say Monero has finally managed to do something groundbreaking at last - turning real life events into BCT forum trolling thread.

Any reason why you are quoting yourself and bumping a Monero marketing thread?

Butthurt is the reason.

He's butthurt some hilarious troll dude busted the Dash scam IRL.

And the sub-Bitcent Dash price isn't exactly soothing that butthurt.   8)

Just because you feel you're the victim for not mining or buying when it was cheap when many others did doesn't mean it is a scam.

Its strange that you continue to call Monero holders trolls yet continue come to our threads in a failed attempt to troll Monero yourself.

The DashHoles are pissed we have been so effective in raising public awareness of their insta-mine, centralization, bad crypo, aggressive toxic cult community, etc.

They blame us for Dash prices being stuck under a single Bitcent; they expected to be on the moon as soon as their stupid promo video was uploaded to youtube.

https://i.imgur.com/xBlmXev.jpg

Thankfully, their lulzy butt-ragings accomplish nothing but Streisand Effect marketing for Monero!   8)

I vote yes!  ;D

https://media.giphy.com/media/13CSvyHEOwoUM/giphy.gif

No one playing the victim here.

We just don't condone instamine scamcoins like DASH etc.

first 8 hours and what...1.8 million DASH or whatever mined?

Currently less than 6 million total dash in circulation.

LOL we dont care that we did not profit from your scam. We just dont like people scamming others with bullshit coins with huge insta-mines and then not talk about it and when you do it is called a "FEATURE"...which is also bullshit.
 :)

For whatever reason, people like thinking they got a fair share. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game

So the constant, "You're just mad you missed the good times" is probably a bad way of going about selling anything. The consumer is going to shrug their shoulders and let you enjoy the ride to 0.

It's amazing how much energy the DashHoles put into defending, err sorry, "explaining" their massive shady instamine.

With the energy (not to mention political capital) wasted on instamine defense, err sorry, "explanation" they could have re-launched Xcoin, Darkcoin, and Dash separately and legitimately.

With the energy you put on trolling the project you're the most jelly about you would've mined a block of Bitcoins with pen and paper by now.

I think the perfect time for Monero marketing would be in the next year. As people become more concerned about their privacy (like NSA spying their activity) they would definitely be attracted by Monero's privacy features. The part of Bitcoin's block chain being a public ledger is probably not a good idea as anyone could trace your transactions (if they are able to link the public address with you) and know what you're doing. I describe Bitcoin as pseudonymous while Monero is truly anonymous. Just my opinion  ;D

Heads up:  
  
Over at http://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets (http://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets) I'll be conducting a

HVIAmA (Halloween Video Ask Me Anything) at 1PM ET about Monero.  

All of my answers will be in the form of videos, and with successive questions participants will unlock new halloween costumes.
  
This is a subreddit filled with people who like speculative and risky trades on the stock market and has showed a tepid reception to cryptocurrency in the past.  My job will be to convince them that Monero is not a scam, and is a genuine and honest project filled with good intentions.  It might be risky, but it's legit as it gets.  
  
If you have the time, tune in.

Very entertaining!
https://twitter.com/XMRpromotions/status/652614168978165762

Just started reading the thread on there and it's awesome so far! Americanpegasus will definitely need to be apart of the monero marketing team when it comes down to it in the near future.

Everyone knows that big companies and federal agencies are spying. Not only usa, but everyone. For example, Australia is goint to start 'officially' its spying program in two days: http://www.echo.net.au/2015/09/privacy-ends-october-13-2015/

But the problem is that regular ppl just dont care with the prevalent opinion "i have nothing to hide, as I dont do anything bad'. etc.

There is a fraction of ppl concerned about privacy, which look for privacy supportive services especially in the internet. Thus monero marketing should be aimed at this group of ppl and such services. And its already happening.

The most recent example is with tutanota and possibility of making donations with xmr:
https://tutanota.uservoice.com/forums/237921-general/suggestions/9968298-accept-monero-xmr-for-donations

Wake up world! Your right to privacy is under attack. The voting link you just provided proves that some people do care about privacy. Monero should try to find them all!