Live solely off of bitcoins [Bounty Canceled]

[benjamindees]

This is interesting.  I could do it, but it would be more "living off the grid with stuff I already own" and less "paying for rent and clothes with Bitcoins".

[Anonymous]

Heh, you could eat for $50 a month. Beef liver does the trick. If you can, shoot a deer and store it in your freezer.

[mpkomara]

If you buy the gun with bitcoins and store the meat in a refrigerator bought with bitcoins and pay for the electricity to run the refrigerator in bitcoins, then you are eligible for the reward.  As of right now, i believe you can do two of the three.

"Stuff you already have" won't count.  If you consume it, wear it or live in it, it must be purchased with bitcoins or have sprung up from the earth.

[error]

In theory, one could buy solar panels with bitcoins....

[cw]

In order to make this possible, participants can complement it with free services such as: CouchSurfing for shelter, carsharing/hitch-hiking services for transport, etc.

Also, hacker squats (google for "hackerspaces" and "hacklabs") might get you free food or cheap food for BTC if you introduce them to the Bitcoin world and give them a talk about it.

[PLATO]

I will do this!

Hi guys, I'm PLATO. I love this idea, and it dovetails nicely with a project I've been working on, called Subverse. It's in preliminary stages still... you can see some basic placeholder stuff that I've coded so far at subverse.info and subvert.me. To sum the project up - there are thousands of websites who are trying to fix the world by educating the people (infowars.com, tragedyandhope.com, mediamonarchy.com, and cryptogon.com to name a few of the best.) So far, these sites don't talk to each other - infowars users may well be unaware that mediamonarchy exists and vice versa. Subverse will be a unifying context of these independent media sources; a way to link them all together so anyone who wants to understand what's actually going on and how to fix it can look in one place.

All of these websites have interesting people working behind the scenes. I have been considering leaving my apartment and road tripping across the US, to meet all these subversives face to face. Doing it entirely on bitcoins makes this idea even sexier! I'm unemployed and am looking for patronage to make this idea a reality; now that bitcoins are around, this would totally work through micropatronage. ("Patronage" being the centuries-old idea that someone with money pays an artist's living wage so they can create their art; micropatronage meaning that if a bunch of people each send me a single bitcoin, I will be able to feed myself, run this site, and change the world.)

I'll chronicle my adventures in a blog as I travel, using a laptop and 3G tethered cell. While I'm not actually driving, I will be working on this Subverse project. My (empty so far) blog is located at therealplato.com, and my twitter feed is at twitter.com/therealplato.

I intend on couch surfing and camping for most of the trip, so the only things I will need to pay for are a 3G cell connection, gasoline, car repairs, and food.

My car gets about 15 miles to the gallon; it's about 2000 miles from east to west coast, gas is about $4/gallon, and bitcoins are currently about $.9/btc. The math works out to somewhere around 600 bitcoins for those 2000 miles. Food will probably run me 250ish BTC/mo, car repairs will hopefully be zero, and a cell connection will be something like 65 BTC/mo. I'll set up a counter on my blog showing my current bitcoin balance, along with histories of everything I buy with bitcoins.

At a minimum, I will need to garner enough support that I can find people every couple hundred miles who are willing to trade me gasoline for bitcoins. I have a couple hundred bitcoins of my own that I will spend initially; hopefully by the time those run out, more people will be willing to be my patrons.

Your thoughts?

[edit: I would love to stop by universities or other venues and speak about my experiences, as I travel past them!]
--
PLATO

[mpkomara]

as far as i know, there is a single car for sale using bitcoins.  it's in australia.  you can find the details in the marketplace on this forum.  you'd have to buy this car and use it for your road trip, and the gasoline you buy would have to be from a gas-for-bitcoin merchant (they don't exist yet).  again, the bounty i'm offering is not intended to support a road trip.  it is intended to show that there are enough diverse merchants that one could survive on bitcoins.

[Anonymous]

I will do this!

Hi guys, I'm PLATO. I love this idea, and it dovetails nicely with a project I've been working on, called Subverse. It's in preliminary stages still... you can see some basic placeholder stuff that I've coded so far at subverse.info and subvert.me. To sum the project up - there are thousands of websites who are trying to fix the world by educating the people (infowars.com, tragedyandhope.com, mediamonarchy.com, and cryptogon.com to name a few of the best.) So far, these sites don't talk to each other - infowars users may well be unaware that mediamonarchy exists and vice versa. Subverse will be a unifying context of these independent media sources; a way to link them all together so anyone who wants to understand what's actually going on and how to fix it can look in one place.

All of these websites have interesting people working behind the scenes. I have been considering leaving my apartment and road tripping across the US, to meet all these subversives face to face. Doing it entirely on bitcoins makes this idea even sexier! I'm unemployed and am looking for patronage to make this idea a reality; now that bitcoins are around, this would totally work through micropatronage. ("Patronage" being the centuries-old idea that someone with money pays an artist's living wage so they can create their art; micropatronage meaning that if a bunch of people each send me a single bitcoin, I will be able to feed myself, run this site, and change the world.)

I'll chronicle my adventures in a blog as I travel, using a laptop and 3G tethered cell. While I'm not actually driving, I will be working on this Subverse project. My (empty so far) blog is located at therealplato.com, and my twitter feed is at twitter.com/therealplato.

I intend on couch surfing and camping for most of the trip, so the only things I will need to pay for are a 3G cell connection, gasoline, car repairs, and food.

My car gets about 15 miles to the gallon; it's about 2000 miles from east to west coast, gas is about $4/gallon, and bitcoins are currently about $.9/btc. The math works out to somewhere around 600 bitcoins for those 2000 miles. Food will probably run me 250ish BTC/mo, car repairs will hopefully be zero, and a cell connection will be something like 65 BTC/mo. I'll set up a counter on my blog showing my current bitcoin balance, along with histories of everything I buy with bitcoins.

At a minimum, I will need to garner enough support that I can find people every couple hundred miles who are willing to trade me gasoline for bitcoins. I have a couple hundred bitcoins of my own that I will spend initially; hopefully by the time those run out, more people will be willing to be my patrons.

Your thoughts?

[edit: I would love to stop by universities or other venues and speak about my experiences, as I travel past them!]
--
PLATO

This is awesome .
You could sell adspace on your car in return for a magnetic car magnet with the sponsors logo/website. http://www.123print.com/Car-Magnets this one has free shipping.

Find a mobile provider who accepts bitcoins as your phone sponsor...


Setup a fivegrinder group for it imo. http://fivegrinder.com/help/start

[Ian Maxwell]

At 15 miles to the gallon, with a cross country trip ahead of you, you may be better off just getting a new one. It will save you money in the long run anyway.

I have a 2001 coupe that has gotten me about 23 miles to the gallon on average (and I'm a pretty wasteful driver where gas mileage is concerned), and I plan to put it up for sale sometime in the next 1-2 months. I might sell it for BTC, but I'll have to talk it over with my wife first. If I do, I'll give you first crack at it.

[PLATO]

still got a lien on it :-/

I get something in the neighborhood of 20+ though if I'm drafting trucks on the highway. I'm also not a very economical driver... although I expect to break those habits pretty quick over the next couple months.
I made a new thread for my trip since it appears to conflict with the OP's rules: http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4752.0

[CCCMikey]

Coming Soon: The Amazing Race: Bitcoin Edition ?

[mpkomara]

I'm canceling this bounty.  It would no longer be that noteworthy (to me, at least) if someone lived a month off of bitcoins.