Bitcoin Forum

People love money and some people love a good mystery.

1: Get a bunch of cheap USB flash drives and get the bitcoin logo put onto the side.
2: Put a wallet.dat file on there with like 1/4 a bitcoin.
3: Read "readme.txt" explaining that there is money in data form on this drive and how to get at it.
4: Leave drive somewhere public where "normal" people can find it.
5: Local and national news picks this up as a story and gets more people interested in this new form of currency.
6: Profit. Well.. for some of you. =P

If i would find one as a normal person
I would plug it into my pc and fromat it.

Never look at the content to keep a clear
concious about having a new pendrive ;D



Otherwise great idea.
I think It would be really important where you do this seed

We can leave a note, right?
Like rubber-band a note to the USB.

Stop the presses!

What if instead of using USBs, leave a message in a book? Books can be obtained free. The first page or, at the very least, inside cover is blank. For inspiration, I refer you to this established site: http://www.bookcrossing.com/

We can either bootstrap on their site or create a new one. Now, I wonder if bitcrossing.com is available.

~Bruno~

I think any idea of giving bitcoins for free is fundamentally wrong

+1

Essentially, the experience you are offering is either the exchanges (nothing to do with the fundamental utility of Bitcoin and irritating too), or the ungraceful ecosystem of Bitcoin merchants (or in other words, there aren't many interesting things you can do with 0.25 BTC), together with the technical burden of accessing the network.

None of these are cumbersome or boring when you have a real motive though.

Bitcoin is appealing because it provides functionality that is not possible in any other way. For someone to be carried away by the idea, they have to be in a position where Bitcoin can demonstrate its magic. That's why I think "spreading the word" per se is counter-productive, and attracts the wrong crowd.

+ I also don't understand these stupid threads "Ask them to accept donations in Bitcoin"...

You can NOT force people to love you... The only way for anything to succeed is to become attractive enough, let's work in this direction and stop asking people to accept bitcoin into their lives.

+1

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/_freeprizecndsd.pdf

I consider Seth the only valuable marketing teacher now

I, too, love Seth Godin (http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/). I love the tagline on his site: Go Make Something Happen.

~Bruno~

Sorry to put a massive downer on this but the majority of computer users won't have a clue what to do with this wallet.dat file and will likely just delete it and sell the USB stick instead.

A lot of computer users have trouble copying and pasting files into anywhere other than My Documents on Windows. I think a lot of people on this forum are forgetting this when they come up with some of their creative ideas.

Not to mention after reading "there is money in data form on this USB drive" most people will probably think it's a scam or completely bogus as they only think of money as physical items such as coins or notes.

You may have a valid point there, norulezapply. If I found such a USB drive, I couldn't wait to get home to plug it in to see which virus my computer may contract.

What I propose is something like those Ex Libris stickers we've all seen in books. Take a look at the image below. Picture a Bitcoin logo on top, with plenty of room for text below. Place the book in the wild and register it at http://www.bookcrossing.com/, remembering to mention Bitcoin when you do so.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7038/6996495587_c290d2b395.jpg

and what is more attractive then wide and diverse means of using bitcoin?  the more places it is accepted, the more services and products you can exchange bitcoin for, the more attractive it is.

what is your proposal for making bitcoin attractive enough?

If you have 0.25 bitcoins to workout Ill it.

It's attracted to different people for different reasons. Silk road patrons, gamers, advertisers, charities, etc.

~Bruno~

There are different horizons, the things I care about right now are:

1. Since Bitcoin now has multisig transactions, next game changing invention will be Transaction Replacement https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=67739.0

2. Remove traction from buying BTC - I think of Ripple payments system exclusively for buy/sell Bitcoins...

3. Bitcoinising communities - every forum\blog must have some plugins that utilize Bitcoins in donation/carma/ratings etc...

Another faucet ?

yes, but what do you feel is the single most important thing to have more "regular" people using it?

and how do you intend to get to the point where every forum/blog has a bitcoin donation/karma/ratings utility?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68458.0

Bear in mind, we're not seeking a majority of people of the world to use Bitcoin. We're just currently trying to reach a critical mass to hurdle the tipping point, thus bringing Bitcoin into the mainstream.

That said, I'm still working on answering your question properly but, in the mean time, I'm getting "irregular" people to use Bitcoin.

~Bruno~

I'm optimistic about Bitcoin, but maybe not as optimistic as you are.

People build themselves to fit best to their environment. There are a lot of things Bitcoin will help people do, but they currently don't have the habit of doing them, so they can't recognize the benefits easily. For instance, it is almost impossible to randomly financially interact with an entity across the globe, that doesn't share your language and way of doing things. Since this is the case, people don't have the necessary skills/habits/likes to benefit from such interactions, because it would be useless. After the pathways are in place, these interactions take place, and only through the established paths. Bitcoin would greatly reduce the know-how requirement there, but people won't jump at the chance until after there is a concrete structure that is already heavily utilizing this.

That's why I think "regular" people will use it after some pioneers start profiting from it and develop common sense around it. It needs to be at a level that someone would directly benefit from it, just by imitating other people. It doesn't necessarily be "easy to use", but "being used" and profitable. I think we're on the right path, offering services/goods for Bitcoin, preferring services that do so, etc. We are proving to other potential pioneers that it's doable, and in the process testing the grounds for them (all these frauds, scams, cracks, theft, etc. are just that). The more things happen, the shorter we'll take to succeed. :) For instance, even Bitcoin users don't agree on what kind of wallet to use, etc. Next year, all that will have been resolved, with the current pace of greater development.

It might also help to extend our reach and try to interact with people who aren't necessarily our type of people.

ok, and how do you plan on spreading that?  bluntly, what i'm saying, is you expressed a strong disapproval of people contacting companies about accepting bitcoin, yet you feel an important part of the spread of bitcoin is to get blogs and forums to use bitcoin.

i'm asking specifically how you reconcile disproving of contacting organizations to request/recommend they accept bitcoin, with wanting to spread bitcoin use throughout blogs and forums.

how specifically do you want to spread bitcoin without contacting blogs, forums and websites?

yes, i'm specifically saying how do we move towards that critical mass, because by definition, once its reached, momentum will do all the work.

i'd count irregular people as included in regular people here.  the fringe group is bitcoin users, the rest of the population are "regular"

personally, i think its a multifaceted approach that will push bitcoin forward, but i think contacting organizations, if they be donation based or retail, about bitcoin is an important facet.

the more functional bitcoin is, the more items services you can purchase, the more options "regular" people have when they learn about it, the more likely they will be to take that first hardest step to become involved with it.

Bluntly, I come, study their problems, make solution, say "take it and use it"

so you just "show up" and tell them they are going to use bitcoin without first even contacting them?  sounds like a much better idea then simply requesting they use bitcoin.  i'm intrigued, how has it been working out for you?

:) man, I see it now... it's pointless conversation...

Everybody is free to action as they want... God bless America, amen!

it didn't start that way, but i agree, it seems it has ended up like that.  i was mostly just disagreeing with you statement that websites that take donations shouldn't be contacted to consider taking donations in bitcoin, and was genuinely interested in what your ideas on spreading bitcoin acceptance was.