Bitcoin Forum

BTCinch is putting together some educational Bitcoin flyers to distribute at Occupy protests. Bruce Wagner will be teaching classes on Bitcoin at the NYC Occupy on Saturday mornings. We're hoping that these flyers will be a useful tool in the class, as they provide basic info as well as funds for the class to use for test transactions.

The flyer will be split into three sections:

• What is Bitcoin?

            Focus on P2P nature and Decentralization

• Bitcoin recovery QR code/url

            Student scans code, and is sent to recovery page for their Bitcoin

• What to do with your Bitcoin

            Highlight products/stores accepting Bitcoin. Bitmunchies is giving all protesters 20% off and donating 10BTC to the class fund. If any other merchants are willing to give the protesters a discount or donations, let us know! We have limited space, but would like to highlight a few (3?) different options.

We could use help with this effort in a few different ways. We can use constructive input on text/images for the flyer. We can use help with classes and/or handing out flyers at Occupy movements. You can also donate Bitcoin to be attached to flyers in two ways.

Donate via BTCinch: https://www.btcinch.com/sendbtc/?mkey=0cD%23Dxs0eXJLwL4u&curcy=BTC (https://www.btcinch.com/sendbtc/?mkey=0cD%23Dxs0eXJLwL4u&curcy=BTC)
Donation address: 13eVavx6CVVynp2CBRk3wAbkKVmTGEsPm4

100% of the donated funds will be distributed at Occupy protests. If there are any unclaimed funds at the end of this effort, we'll donate them to the Bitcoin faucet.

We're also looking for a way to get water and food to the protesters. If you are willing to help us distribute these, or donate helpful goods, please post here. We contacted Feed The Protest, but have not gotten a response yet.

what is a "Recovery" page? O.o

A page where one can recover Bitcoin. Kind of like the Bitcoin faucet, but integrated with a wallet service, so they can do it all from their cell phone. I'm putting together a generic recovery page this afternoon. In the meanwhile, I can send you a bitcent and you can recover it, so as to demonstrate the process. :)

Is Bruce Wagner going to teach the protesters how to pay for Thai ladyboys with bitcoins, or will that be part of a separate workshop?

He's going to stick to educating them on Bitcoin. Perhaps you'd like to volunteer your own expertise on the subject? :P

My opinion is that Bruce Wager should focus on paying off the people who gave him what little money they had in the Bold Funding days (and the courts have decided he should in my understanding of things.)  When he get's that done, then get back to educating people about Bitcoin.

But it's a free country and as long as he is a free person he can do as he likes I guess.  I cannot honestly say that I consider him to be an inappropriate spokesman for the Bitcoin community at this point in time.  Sad as that may be...

3 negatives in a sentence and a half  ;)

Took me 3 tries to parse that and I'm still not sure I got it right.

When I read the OP I was all like, "Wait, Bruce Wagner... As in the potential scammer Bruce Wagner?  That'll go over well once they google him some."

Nope, how to setup your own online wallet site and have bitcoiners give you their money. Then run off with everything and claim you were hacked.

bearbones,

If I give you a coupon code for BitBrew, would you be able to put it on the landing page supporters end up on after donating? Or is there another way you could get it to supporters?

Awwwwww man, I haven't been burned that badly since the time that one guy told me he was made of rubber, and I was made of glue.

 :'(

At MtGox you can redeem private keys, so people could add funds to a MtGox account and go from there...

At last something constructive. Absolutely! :)

PM sent!

One idea that has been mentioned is a coffee stand... edd, do you think that can be set up? 

You mean physically handing out cups of coffee? I'm sure someone could do it but I'm afraid I'm not planning a trip to Wall Street at the moment.

That would be a spectacular addition to the class, I think! Even if we could just brew a bit jug of coffee and charge 0.1btc for a cup, it would be a great opportunity to use Bitcoin in a sample transaction. Might just try this out in Denver, if I can find the time. :)

In NYC you'd get arrested doing that without a vendors liscense

First they'd have to prove you were selling it. Might be worth getting arrested, if it forces them to legally recognize Bitcoin transactions as legitimate commerce. :)

Good idea, but you'd probably be arrested there merely for handing out the coffee for free. A) public safety hazard, B) no coffee license and C) undercutting the union coffee baristas. And man... if someone spilled the hot coffee on themselves, $1million lawsuit. America is the land of the free.

Proposed text:

I could barely believe it myself.

Once again the Something Awful goons are talking about doing what Bitcoin people should be doing.  They are chatting about handing out flyers about Bold Funding if Bruce is there acting as a feeder for the next series of scams.

As things evolve I feel more and more that that a majority of people simply should not play around with Bitcoin at all, and those who do should meet first with some raw and un-cut warnings about what they are getting into.

My mock-up of a Bitcoin introduction site for something like the 'operationbitcoin.org - ows campaign' started out with the flat out statement to 'trust nobody...not even us.'  Then went on to describe the various options for dealing with addresses/keys/wallets.  If I were to do it again, I would follow up the statement with a case-study of 'MyBitCoin and the OnlyOneTV feeder project' as an optional link at least.

It really just blows my mind that anyone could think sending a guy who used financial trickery to scam people out of their homes for a living was the logical choice for a Bitcoin representative at Occupy Wall Street.

Some people are happy if they can simply Occupy Their House without a shark scamming them out of the title.

+1
And this particular challenge is not going too well for a lot of people I know.

I have been going to occupy melbourne for the past 2 weeks. Im going to take a card table and maybe organise some flyers focusing on australian bitcoiners. If anyone wants to provide some flyers or network on how we can go about introducing bitcoin Id like to hear it.

Im thinking of doing what jimbobway suggested which is simply setup a card table with a  bitcoin sign and chat to people/hand out info as they approach.

+1 ack, good idea, i will try it this way with the Madrid protesters

I think there are a few really critical mistakes to avoid, at any rate:

1. No one speaks for the whole community. Certainly not Bruce Wagner.

2. Keep it simple and NON-TECHNICAL. The idea that you need a class taught by a con artist to learn how to use some new form of money will immediately turn off for anybody with half a brain. You don't need to know anything about wallet encryption, QCodes, hash rates, mining, trading, deflation, or how to avoid scam sites. Just get Bitcoins into peoples' hands to use as currency peer to peer on your iphone.

Things to keep in mind:

* One guy actually using it is more important a thousand people picking up a flyer and throwing it away.

* Hearing about it from your friend, or getting some from your friend, is a net positive. Hearing about it first from a scam artist is a massive fail.

* Circulation of the currency is everything to the uptake. Not trading, not education. Circulation and diffusion.

* The only things new people need to know about Bitcoin right up front are that
1/ we're promoting it for one reason only: No government or corporation can control it.
2/ The banks and financial institutions are afraid of it. It's a currency for the people.
3/ It's anonymous and untraceable like cash.
4/ You can store it on your phone.
5/ Be careful who you give it to. Like cash, you can't get it back.

* There's nothing wrong with MultiBit or BitcoinApp. Startup time needs to be FAST under these conditions. The learning curve needs to be shallow.

* Everyone who understands hash rates or mining already knows about Bitcoin and has an opinion about it. They haven't, so far, been excellent stewards of the currency. NO CLASSES.

* Why not set up a stand where people can drop off canned food and warm clothes and get paid a small amount of BTC, and other people can then buy things for a small BTC or USD donation?

Get a coin or two into the hands of a few hundred people at each event; also, give them something to buy with it. You'll see it start to get traded beyond the original group who had it.

Say NO to seminars, and NO to scam artists like Wagner. And support legitimate businesses who follow the law, but use Bitcoin to subvert corporate controls (like us).

Use BitcoinsForChristmas.com to send coins to anyone you know who's going to a protest. It's a good way to get them up and running FAST. That's is the whole point of the site; to cut through the technical babble and get the blood pumping through this economy. The key here is critical mass, and this is a critical time for reaching it.

I'm not trying to obscure the fact that we have a vested interest in getting that circulation going. But the reason WHY we have that interest is because Bitcoin's interests are our own. The cost of the requisite banking and holds to set up a casino that takes Visa/Mastercard are roughly $250k at a bare minimum; including $50k held indefinitely by the card companies, another $100k to lawyers and crooked gaming commissions, and 7% fees on all the transactions. That's why running an online casino is a game for multi-millionaires and you don't see a lot of startups in this space. We run the most transparent site on the planet, with every single card shoe published automatically and open for statistical analysis. We're 100% legal, incorporated in Costa Rica, and not taking players from countries where it would violate local law. But we still couldn't operate without either giving a majority of control over to corporate investors, just for the privilege of paying massive banking fees, or else by using a decentralized currency like Bitcoin. That's why our interests are in alignment; and whatever you think of gambling, we have a common enemy with OWS, in the massive accumulation of power by a few institutions over where and how we can use our own money. That's why we launched BitcoinsForChristmas and why we want -- and need -- for the currency to become a widely used medium of exchange while remaining independent of any central control, and while not falling victim to scammers and crooks and speculators who will drive people away from it.

/rant

This. As soon as mining and technical stuff gets involved people loose interests. Its fast, efficient, secure and fully digital. people generally need to know very little else.