Bitcoin Forum

No big deal, just wanted to let you know..

So we were having calzone and tuna salad at this new Italian place yesterday and a friend of mine tells me she's getting an android smartphone today.. chitter chatter about Bitcoin etc.. and I end up paying for her bill (which she initially refused) on the condition that I teach her how to get ahold of Bitcoins so she can try out her new phone by sending me her part of the bill in BTC.

Found the same agreement for the cocktails and tequila shots later on and the rest of my persuasive talking made sure she's going to actually send the coin before seeing me again ;)

I think I have found the most enjoyable way of doing OTC :D

I like it very much. It's a pretty flexible tactic.

"Oh, no I can't let you do X for free, let me pay you."

"Well, I can always use more Bitcoins."

"Bitcoins?"

Really interesting tactic... Unfortunately, not many people are that open-minded wanting to try or learn something new :(
But we can always try ;)

I did this with a friend once.  3 weeks later his phone got a firmware update and his coins disappeared.

Today when I send bitcoin to friends, I always generate a passphrase-based address (aka brainwallet) for them first and send the coins there.  If they end up getting interested in bitcoin they can eventually send their coins to their own wallet/client/brainwallet and secure them.  If they don't have any interest or lose their wallet/password/etc, I can always recover the coins with a simple passphrase and nothing is wasted.

There's a nice fun factor to walking up to a buddy and saying something like "John Smith smells like old socks <phone number>", followed by "I just gave you 2 bitcoins!"

(yes I know that's not a good passphrase but it's good enough for a small amount to illustrate the concept)

For easy brainwallets, try http://bitaddress.org and enter any string of text on the Wallet Details tab.

This is THE killer app that will make Bitcoin infamous.

When introducing friends to Bitcoin on their mobile, tell them to go to instawallet.org, bookmark the URL, and also email you the URL.

Then, send all the coins you want. They won't be able to destroy the coins or lose them, because they're not on the phone.

Then, once a friend is somewhat comfortable and wants the Bitcoin 102 lesson, set them up with Bitcoin Spinner or Blockchain.info's new android app (the latter is actually better because it's not depended on the phone itself).

this is how I plan to introduce my friends to bitcoin -> https://www.casascius.com/

I've got a few on order that I'm going to pass around ...