Bitcoin guerrilla marketing on paper money

[Arto]

Many thanks to Gatorhex for the following ingenious guerrilla marketing idea:

Assuming there is no law against defacing your money (there probably is for fly posting) just write "bitcoin.org" on all the debt notes that pass through your hands then everyone who uses the money will see it.

For my part, I have just gone ahead and implemented this for all the euro notes currently in my wallet. Here's a sample:



I experimented a bit with different writing instruments, and in the end would recommend using a pencil. It works and looks better (at least on euro notes) than a ballpoint pen, doesn't permeate to the other side of the note as a felt tip pen would, and is quickly & easily erasable in case the payee gives you any grief regarding your illicit graffiti

A good reason to always carry a pencil with you!

Note: in case you would like to do this for the paper money in your own wallet, you should be aware of the high likelihood that the powers that be would consider it an offense against their claimed monopoly on legal tender issuance and regulation in your particular geographic neighborhood. Proceed at your own discretion and risk.

[Arto]

I've also submitted this to /r/Bitcoin at:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/11glvr/guerrilla_marketing_for_bitcoin_on_a_20_note/

[HostFat]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=64727.0

[Arto]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=64727.0

Thanks, had not seen that! Glad that others have already had the same idea.

[FreeMoney]

is quickly & easily erasable in case the payee gives you any grief regarding your illicit graffiti

Seem like a good time for http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GH_StQ6KdW0

[Arto]

is quickly & easily erasable in case the payee gives you any grief regarding your illicit graffiti

Seem like a good time for http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GH_StQ6KdW0

"This video contains content from UMG, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds. Sorry about that."

But the title It Wasn't Me by Shaggy feat RikRok gives a hint as to what you meant

[VogueBlackheart]

Yesss.

For efficiency and quality control, perhaps a custom ink stamp is in order.

Maybe include a cheeky message as well:
[WARNING! Obsolete Currency. Replace with Bitcoin.]

Here's an example of a stamp I had made for use around the office:
http://i47.tinypic.com/2nq6tzq.jpg

[knight22]

I just LOVE this idea!

[knight22]

Here my first Canadian dollars ready to be unleashed!

[Portnoy]

Here my first Canadian dollars ready to be unleashed!

Oh great... 

Now everyone will think Sir Wilfrid Laurier invented Bitcoin and the Liberal Party of Canada is the central authority!   

[Arto]

Here my first Canadian dollars ready to be unleashed!

Excellent! Glad to see this notion has wings.

In the meantime, I've so far spent some half a dozen individual euro notes decorated thus, without any trouble. Over here in Germany, it's only the €100 and larger bills that receive close scrutiny wherein the illicit scribbling could be a problem, so it would seem safe enough to process any and all smaller notes as a matter of course. I now carry a pencil with me for that purpose.

[Arto]

For efficiency and quality control, perhaps a custom ink stamp is in order.

Maybe include a cheeky message as well:
[WARNING! Obsolete Currency. Replace with Bitcoin.]

That's a good idea, and I like the notion of a cheeky public service message instead of merely "bitcoin.org" by itself. Perhaps a quote like this:

Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value -- zero.

The use of a rubberstamp was also suggested by Mike Gogulski in the original thread:

The Conspiracy wants you, children. Oh, it wants you bad.

After I first saw "They Live" in late 1990, I had a rubber stamp made reading "THIS IS YOUR GOD" in big block letters of a size suitable for US banknotes. I'd stamp every one of the things that came through my hands for a year or two after that.

Nowadays I walk into a Tesco in Slovakia and buy something upstairs with a €10 note, getting a fiver back plus some coins. Unbeknownst to me, the five-euro note has a small tear on one corner. Take that note downstairs in the same Tesco, right afterwards, and try to pay for something and they'll refuse to take it. Sorry, you'll have to go to the bank ---and show ID--- to get the bloody thing replaced. Useless fucks.

So, my thought for this little bit of guerrilla marketing: Get a *small* rubberstamp made reading "bitcoin.org". Get some blue ink and dilute it down to something approaching the background of the €5 note. Stamp in an area where the mark won't be obtrusive, and not near the major security features. Make piles of them. Plenty will pass with no scrutiny at merchants, and at the end of the day you can always get a banked friend to take the pile you got tired of to his/her bank and ask for replacements, complaining that they've been collecting in the shop till.

[dunand]

Here my first Canadian dollars ready to be unleashed!

This clean place in the corner exist on all Canadian denominations and is perfect to write something.

[Arto]

Now everyone will think Sir Wilfrid Laurier invented Bitcoin and the Liberal Party of Canada is the central authority!  

I rather doubt the room for genuine confusion here.

Mind you, strategically speaking the next step here would be to have enough of these enhanced notes in circulation that some major news publication or another picks up on it. This is certainly a case where any publicity is good publicity, and will only serve to spread wider still both the notion of paper-money defacement as well as the word about Bitcoin.

Hmm, one wonders whether the sundry Occupy folks would be interested in (or might even perhaps already be practicing?) paper-money defacement as a viral, low-intensity form of civil disobedience and protest?

[Arto]

This clean place in the corner exist on all Canadian denominations and is perfect to write something.

Personally, I write only on the backside of the note. I'm not scribbling these for cashiers to notice, but rather consumers receiving change to scratch their head about. A second-order message, if you will.

[knight22]

From now on, every bill I will touch will be marked with bitcoin!

[Portnoy]

Now everyone will think Sir Wilfrid Laurier invented Bitcoin and the Liberal Party of Canada is the central authority!  

I rather doubt the room for genuine confusion here.

Ya think?   

Btw, this is not a new idea. The Discordians have been fnording dollars since the 60s, and no doubt they were
not the first to print slogans ( and/or counter-magick formulas ) on currency.

Hail Eris! 

[Littleshop]

I have been selling an item that could be miss-used for this purpose.  There is a DRM system contained within* that attempts to prevent the stamper from being used on money but if the stamp is used at an off angle the system does not always recognize that it is stamping on money and allows the ink deposit. 

http://cryptoanarchy.com/store/index.php?route=product/product&path=62&product_id=88

* not really

[hamdi]

well,
all nice and good,

but linking people to bitcoin.org drives them away in the same moment.


you expect they download the standard-client and fetch the whole blockchain?

the way it is presented on the bitcoin.org page it looks like an experimental opensource project with only a few users and a all in all very nerdy image.

people expect to see the next paypal.

an important rule - if you want to steal someones market share you don't have to be as good as him. you have to be wayyyyy better.


this incents me to start a totally different discussion - how should we represent bitcoin on www.bitcoin.org in a way, that normal users get hooked to the idea instantly, without all the crypto mumbojumbo and version number that indicate something that doesn't work??

[Arto]

I have been selling an item that could be miss-used for this purpose.  There is a DRM system contained within* that attempts to prevent the stamper from being used on money but if the stamp is used at an off angle the system does not always recognize that it is stamping on money and allows the ink deposit. 

http://cryptoanarchy.com/store/index.php?route=product/product&path=62&product_id=88

Looks pretty much like what the doctor ordered, but I'd probably want a different message imprinted. Any good hints as to where one might source customized rubber stamps like this?