$10 million toward making Bitcoin successful

[Elwar]

Let us say that you won the lottery and you want Bitcoin to succeed in the long term. You want to take some of your earnings, $10 million, and use it toward making Bitcoin a fairly popular and useful currency of choice.

What would you do?

[1714022838]

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[evoorhees]

Prepare a brilliant legal team and start actively engaging in cases to set precedent.

[cablepair]

Let us say that you won the lottery and you want Bitcoin to succeed in the long term. You want to take some of your earnings, $10 million, and use it toward making Bitcoin a fairly popular and useful currency of choice.

What would you do?

I would spend the money convincing walmart to accept Bitcoins in all of their stores world wide.

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

Would pay for every exchange to become 100% legal, MSB's and what not.

I'd also commission Casascius to make a few million 1 Bitcoin coins and give them out for free at the OWS protests.

Thats what I could think of the top of my head

[Steve]

Prepare a brilliant legal team and start actively engaging in cases to set precedent.

I like this answer.  I would also put some into shoring up some of the weak points of the system.  Such as ensuring we have a fully p2p exchange system.  A few developers working on it full time should be able to solve that in a few months I imagine.

[BitPay Business Solutions]

Let us say that you won the lottery and you want Bitcoin to succeed in the long term. You want to take some of your earnings, $10 million, and use it toward making Bitcoin a fairly popular and useful currency of choice.

What would you do?

Buy a Bank.  A real functioning commercial bank with all of the licenses in good standing.

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

Let us say that you won the lottery and you want Bitcoin to succeed in the long term. You want to take some of your earnings, $10 million, and use it toward making Bitcoin a fairly popular and useful currency of choice.

What would you do?

Buy a Bank.  A real functioning commercial bank with all of the licenses in good standing.

I'd go with a Credit Union, much easier to maintain. Has its advantages and disadvantages over a Bank, but I think its a wiser choice.

[BitPay Business Solutions]

Let us say that you won the lottery and you want Bitcoin to succeed in the long term. You want to take some of your earnings, $10 million, and use it toward making Bitcoin a fairly popular and useful currency of choice.

What would you do?

Buy a Bank.  A real functioning commercial bank with all of the licenses in good standing.

I'd go with a Credit Union, much easier to maintain. Has its advantages and disadvantages over a Bank, but I think its a wiser choice.

Agree 100%.  Buy a Credit Union. 

[evoorhees]

Agree 100%.  Buy a Credit Union. 

I wonder if, at some stage in the bitcoin world, it would make sense for some of the top companies to form a JV and create/buy a credit union/bank in some free banking area, like Panama?  Some grounded, brick and mortar, physical bank that would add one more strong link between Bitcoin and normal financial markets.

Is there value in something like that?

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

Agree 100%.  Buy a Credit Union.  

I wonder if, at some stage in the bitcoin world, it would make sense for some of the top companies to form a JV and create/buy a credit union/bank in some free banking area, like Panama?  Some grounded, brick and mortar, physical bank that would add one more strong link between Bitcoin and normal financial markets.

Is there value in something like that?

Actually, its in the works! Although not in the immediate future, I'd say definitely within a few years.

I've been flying around the US meeting investors and individuals high in the finance world.
One of my vc's had equity in BankServ, he was responsible for selling the company for $300 Million.
When I met with him last week, he said things would be so much easier for BitInstant and our goals if we buy or start a small Credit Union, and he wants to help us get there

I know the executives of a few exchanges are in talks about it as well.

[BitPay Business Solutions]

Agree 100%.  Buy a Credit Union. 

I wonder if, at some stage in the bitcoin world, it would make sense for some of the top companies to form a JV and create/buy a credit union/bank in some free banking area, like Panama?  Some grounded, brick and mortar, physical bank that would add one more strong link between Bitcoin and normal financial markets.

Is there value in something like that?

Absolutely.  it's the link to the fiat / Federal Reserve world that is the regulatory nightmare for bitcoin right now.  The bitcoin economy can work just fine on its own.  It's where it interacts with the fiat system that all hell brakes loose.

International Casinos can also play a role.  In most casinos now, you can deposit Euros, Yen, etc.  Sometimes it needs to be wired in, but you can also do it in person.  You then play with your chips.  You can cash out however you wish.  If a casino allows deposits in bitcoins just like any other currency, they give you chips and away you go.

[rainingbitcoins]

Let us say that you won the lottery and you want Bitcoin to succeed in the long term. You want to take some of your earnings, $10 million, and use it toward making Bitcoin a fairly popular and useful currency of choice.

What would you do?

Commit myself.

[Elwar]

I would probably put a huge bid wall up at $5/BTC and as people buy, sell at $5.50 for at least a year to give some price stability in the early stage.

[DeathAndTaxes]

I would probably put a huge bid wall up at $5/BTC and as people buy, sell at $5.50 for at least a year to give some price stability in the early stage.

+1 to this.  Bitcoin could use some significant price stability and that will require some significant funding.

[jamesg]

$2m - gorilla marketing campaign to promote bitcoin globally
$2m - seed fund for startups / businesses looking to create valuable services around bitcoin
$2m - buy up bitcoins for their eventual global dominance as a true world wide store of value (does that sound too optimistic) 
$4m - fund to lobby / incentivize the top 500 global internet commerce sites to employ bitcoin payment solutions

[RandyFolds]

Buy a hooker, an eightball of coke and a bottle of whiskey for every one on these forums. Some real-world views from bitcoin's base supporters would help real-world acceptance immensely.

[ElectricMucus]

I'd invest 25 % in a FUD campaign, buy BTC with 60% and 15% in a viral marketing campaign.  


Srsly more USD to "support it" is the last thing Bitcoin needs right now.  

[klaus]

I would probably put a huge bid wall up at $5/BTC and as people buy, sell at $5.50 for at least a year to give some price stability in the early stage.

perfect !!!

[rplg]

I know, I would pay the worlds best programmer to make a decentralized curren.... dangit, fell for another cyclical thought pattern. hey guys I thought we already reached over 150k blocks? is that not enough proof?

that aside, perhaps it would be well spent on something like open transactions, and then buying some physical precious metals and becoming the first issuer of OT precious metals - being available in some physical location so that people can cash out/cash in. just make sure the issuer understands that it is more profitable to not rip people off in the long run.

[genjix]

Services to actually make bitcoin useful beyond speculation. Developers to battle harden and secure the software underlying the network.

Everything else is secondary. With services that people want, fully licensed large scale exchanges would move into bitcoin. The legal precedent thing is a good idea though.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

I would probably put a huge bid wall up at $5/BTC and as people buy, sell at $5.50 for at least a year to give some price stability in the early stage.

With an estimated market cap of $44M (8M BTC X $5.50), 1M users would own on average $44 worth of Bitcoin.

And getting those 1 Million users would not be that difficult, if:

100 current users got one new user within the next week, then:                    ~ Only need to get 13 new users total.
200 users (first 100 and next 100) did the same the following week, then:       ~ Only need to get 12 new users total.
400                                                                                                     ~ Only need to get 11 new users total.    
800                                                                                                     ~ Only need to get 10 new users total.
1,600                                                                                                  ~ Only need to get 9 new users total.
3,200                                                                                                  ~ Only need to get 8 new users total.
6,400                                                                                                  ~ Only need to get 7 new users total.
12,800                                                                                                 ~ Only need to get 6 new users total.
25,600                                                                                                 ~ Only need to get 5 new users total.
51,200                                                                                                 ~ Only need to get 4 new users total.
102,400                                                                                               ~ Only need to get 3 new users total.
204,800                                                                                               ~ Only need to get 2 new users total.
409,600                                                                                               ~ Only need to get 1 new users total.
819,200                                                                        end game!


But, it won't happen if the average maximum is only $44 USD in your pocket.

But, would the first 100 do it for at least $1,000 profit? As well as the same profit for the second group? Third? And mostly likely the last group on my list above?

Now, I'm not taking Ponzi, or pyramid, or MLM here.

Want to hear more? Send me 10 BTC and... Only kidding! In fact, I don't want anything. This would cost nothing to do (as far as paying for a service or product is concerned). Let me know if your interested, and I'll outline how. Of course there's still the rub: ease of transfering BTC and merchants--chicken/egg dilemma.

[Transisto]

Finance ASIC development, to be sold with little profit.

Upgrade the client

Upgrade the forum

[viboracecata]

Spend all the fiat money to buy bitcoins, and then delivery all the bitcoins freely and fairly to other people

[payb.tc]

Spend all the fiat money to buy bitcoins, and then delivery all the bitcoins freely and fairly to other people

and then watch them gradually end up back in the same hands, exactly the same way it happens with fiat.

[Elwar]

Buy a hooker, an eightball of coke and a bottle of whiskey

This goes without saying. I was referring to the day after winning the lottery...

 

[cbeast]

Spend all the fiat money to buy bitcoins, and then delivery all the bitcoins freely and fairly to other people

and then watch them gradually end up back in the same hands, exactly the same way it happens with fiat.

They won't end up in the same hands because bitcoins can't be printed on their demand. Bitcoins are finite.

[payb.tc]

Spend all the fiat money to buy bitcoins, and then delivery all the bitcoins freely and fairly to other people

and then watch them gradually end up back in the same hands, exactly the same way it happens with fiat.

They won't end up in the same hands because bitcoins can't be printed on their demand. Bitcoins are finite.

yeah, but spenders will spend and entrepreneurs and risk takers will end up with 99% of the wealth.

redistribution is only ever temporary.

[cbeast]

Spend all the fiat money to buy bitcoins, and then delivery all the bitcoins freely and fairly to other people

and then watch them gradually end up back in the same hands, exactly the same way it happens with fiat.

They won't end up in the same hands because bitcoins can't be printed on their demand. Bitcoins are finite.

yeah, but spenders will spend and entrepreneurs and risk takers will end up with 99% of the wealth.

redistribution is only ever temporary.

You think entrepreneurs have 99% of the wealth? Try visiting any of the thousands of downtown area in the USA that has a Walmart and other big block stores. You'll see a lot of empty store buildings. But I'm not even talking about that. Banks don't even loan money to small business anymore. Big banks make money through selling arcane financial vehicles.

[the founder]

Let us say that you won the lottery and you want Bitcoin to succeed in the long term. You want to take some of your earnings, $10 million, and use it toward making Bitcoin a fairly popular and useful currency of choice.

What would you do?

Buy a Bank.  A real functioning commercial bank with all of the licenses in good standing.

At the rate of what's going on in the economy right now you might be able to pick one up on the open market for 50 cents....    weird scary shit coming out of Europe.

[Mousepotato]

Let us say that you won the lottery and you want Bitcoin to succeed in the long term. You want to take some of your earnings, $10 million, and use it toward making Bitcoin a fairly popular and useful currency of choice.

What would you do?

I would invest half of it in low risk mutual funds and then take the other half over to my friend Asadulah who works in securities...

[barrymac]

Buy a Bank.  A real functioning commercial bank with all of the licenses in good standing.

there's bound to be hostile takeover options available with the price of some of the banks share.

In addition to that offer the 10 thousand customers a generous positive balance.

I remember a guy from the local branch of a major bank coming to my PRIMARY school when I was about 10 years old and gave me an account book with a balance of £2 . It wasn't much but that worked!

[RandyFolds]

I remember a guy from the local branch of a major bank coming to my PRIMARY school when I was about 10 years old and gave me an account book with a balance of £2 . It wasn't much but that worked!

That is like, the coolest fucking thing I have ever heard. I had a hilarious children's savings account at my parents' credit union when I was little. It was the 'Moola Moola' account, and I got a prize any time I made a deposit, and if I put in $5, then I got to choose from the better prizes.

Unfortunately, it didn't stick. I had more money in my bank account when I was 10 than I do now...sad really.

[byronbb]

Start an offshore payment processor company that accepts bitcoins on behalf of US gamblers wanting to deposit into an array of sportsbooks and pokersites they wish to play at.

[Rodyland]

Let us say that you won the lottery and you want Bitcoin to succeed in the long term. You want to take some of your earnings, $10 million, and use it toward making Bitcoin a fairly popular and useful currency of choice.

What would you do?

I would spend the money convincing walmart to accept Bitcoins in all of their stores world wide.

This, but Amazon.  The fact that they are already online and likely to have an ever so slightly more tech-savvy clientbase means the currently immature state of the bitcoin infrastructure is less of an impediment.

Sadly I think you'll need more than $10m to do this though. 

[DeathAndTaxes]

Start an offshore payment processor company that accepts bitcoins on behalf of US gamblers wanting to deposit into an array of sportsbooks and pokersites they wish to play at.

Bingo.  This would be a huge revenue stream.  Online poker is a roughly a $50B industry that means about $200B a year in cashflows.

[the founder]

I'd donate 10 million to Ron Paul and ask him to revive the competing currencies bill.

[istar]

Make a service that makes it very easy for brick and mortar or anyone?
To earn money for selling Bitcoins.
For example they can sell coins at 1% more expensive than the current exchange rate.

Than they can accept Bitcoins as a payment method for which there is no creditcard fees, earning or saving even more money.

This means that they have strong incentives to use Bitcoins for three reasons:

1. They earn money selling them.
2. Since they are one of the few places you can use them, they get the customers back in a higher extent.
3. They can get free marketing by being one of the first places to use Bitcoins.

[Steve]

I'd donate 10 million to Ron Paul and ask him to revive the competing currencies bill.

If he's half as good as you are at reviving dead threads, it just might work. 

[Andrew Vorobyov]

I would probably put a huge bid wall up at $5/BTC and as people buy, sell at $5.50 for at least a year to give some price stability in the early stage.

you can't... because I will buy out your reserves of BTC very fast with my $10M.. so for price to hold there you will need more BTC... guess where you go than? Yes, you will go to me... and I will sell it for 10 USD and we will continue...

[Kluge]

Attempt to control the BTC price to force it to stay right around $7. Buy all BTC up to $7, then set up a massive bid order @ $7, and a massive ask order (with all remaining coins) @ $7.00001. Hold out for as long as possible, which should be a very long time unless the coins run out which were bought between current price & $7. At that point, were I really committed to blowing through the $10m, I'd start buying Bitcoin above $7 and re-listing it @ $7.

[abaaj]

I would a the BitMart - just like Walmart.

Buy Products and sell people , but i would only accept bitcoins.

Ofcourse will sell 20% lower then Walmart , so people will have to exchange there money to bitcoins

that why bitcoins will become popular and get more demand

[Mjbmonetarymetals]

[cbeast]

I would a the BitMart - just like Walmart.

Buy Products and sell people , but i would only accept bitcoins.

Ofcourse will sell 20% lower then Walmart , so people will have to exchange there money to bitcoins

that why bitcoins will become popular and get more demand

You have an astute understanding of walmart's role in human trafficking 

[RandyFolds]

And CornedBeefHash settles the dispute. I wonder what the upkeep on a skirt like that is...

/thread

[niko]

I would trade the $10 Million for this:



this:



and this:




and I wouldn't have time to worry about anything else.

Your worries would have just started there...  See these examples from rotten.com:

28 Apr 1997    Lottery millionaire Michael Allen is bludgeoned to death in a Lewiston, Maine motel room.
22 May 1999    Billie Bob Harrell, Jr. commits suicide. In June 1997, Harrell won $31 million in the Texas state lottery.
4 Sep 2001    Patrick Collier randomly wins $1 million at a McDonald's in Holly Hill, Florida. "I'm getting a Harley and a couple of houses." Two weeks later, Collier is arrested for allegedly choking and punching his fiancee in the face.
19 Dec 2001    British lottery millionaire Phil Kitchen is found dead on his couch. Kitchen had apparently drunk himself to death (whiskey).
11 Jul 2002    British lottery winner Dennis Elwell dies at work, shortly after telling a coworker that he had drunk cyanide.
21 Apr 2003    $25 million lottery winner Richard Krenzer is stabbed six times by Randall Hillyard and his son at the Swillburg Stop Bar & Grill outside Rochester, NY.
29 Jun 2003    Lottery millionaire Jody Lee Taylor is arrested in Collinsville, Virginia for attempting to run over a sheriff's deputy. On the night of his arrest, Taylor was driving naked down the wrong side of U.S. Route 58 with his headlights off.
5 Aug 2003    After lottery millionaire Jack Whittaker passes out in a West Virginia strip bar, a burglar steals his briefcase containing $545,000 in negotiable bonds. The money is located in a trash dumpster the next morning.
13 Sep 2003    The London Telegraph reports that 16-year-old British lottery millionaire Callie Rogers has lost her boyfriend, fought with her father, been mugged, and been accused of stealing someone's man. "Some days I don't even want to leave my house because people just scream abuse at me. Two months ago I thought I was the luckiest teenager in Britain. But today I can say I have never felt so miserable."
15 Sep 2003    In his Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey home, lottery millionaire Oscar Cordoba repeatedly stabs his wife and her mother with a kitchen knife, killing the mother-in-law.
17 Oct 2003    In a program entitled Living with the Lottery Lout, ITV1 reports that British lottery millionaire Michael Carroll has completely alienated his neighbors in Swaffham, Norfolk by periodically staging loud, impromptu demolition derbies on his property.
18 Nov 2003    An English court issues a bench warrant for lottery millionaire Satish Patel, charged with defrauding the government for three years' worth of unemployment claims.
6 Jan 2004    After getting banned from Billy Sundays Bar and Grill in St Albans, West Virginia, lottery winner Jack Whittaker reportedly threatens to have the manager and his family killed.
20 Jan 2004    Lottery winner Jack Whittaker reports that shortly after dawn, somebody broke into his SUV in Scott Depot, West Virginia and stole a bag containing $100,000 cash.
25 Jan 2004    Lottery winner Jack Whittaker is arrested for drunk driving in Nitro, West Virginia. Police allege the millionaire blew a .190 blood alcohol on the breathalyzer.
Apr 2004    A judge rules that broke Virginia lottery millionaire Suzanne Mullins owes $154,146.50 to the People's Lottery Foundation, a Florida lending institution specializing in loans to lottery winners.
26 Jun 2004    At his Longmont, Colorado home, state lottery millionaire Kevin Lee Sutton allegedly shoots Cristobal Lopez in the head with a .22 caliber pistol. Lopez survives and Sutton is later charged with attempted murder.
20 Jul 2004    In Minneapolis, MN, lottery millionaire Victoria A. Zell reportedly crashes her SUV into a truck on the way home from a bar, killing passenger Joshua Schmidt and paralyzing Amity Dimock from the waist down.
7 Aug 2004    Incarcerated serial rapist Iorworth Hoare wins $12.9 million in the British lottery.
13 Aug 2004    The nonprofit group Equine Protection of North America files suit against New Hampshire lottery millionaire Mary Ellen Sanderson for failure to deliver on an alleged $70,000 annual donation pledge.
24 Aug 2004    An Arizona bird refuge, The Oasis Sanctuary, files suit against New Hampshire lottery millionaires Mary Ellen Sanderson and former husband Jason Sanderson for failure to deliver on an alleged $100,000 annual donation pledge.
Sep 2004    Minnesota lottery millionaire Victoria A. Zell is arrested for having allegedly violated the terms of her bail and possessing 0.7 grams of methamphetamine. Zell had also reportedly wired $500,000 to a Canadian bank.
10 Oct 2004    Seattle police officers shoot California lottery millionaire Rick Camat to death in a parking lot near Qwest Field. Officers claim that Camat refused to drop his pistol, but Camat's brother claims the cops give him no instructions to do so.
2 Oct 2005    Having spent his $10 million prize in just seven years, Winnipeg lottery winner Gerald Muswagon hangs himself. Notable events in his monied spree include a high-speed chase in 2000 and a sexual assault arrest in 2002.
28 Oct 2005    Million dollar jackpot winner Christina Goodenow is arrested after Oregon police discover that she had purchased the winning ticket with a credit card stolen from her dead mother-in-law. Police searching her home discover her stash of methamphetamine, but find no trace of her first $33,500 installment.
15 Jan 2006    Bankrupt ex-lottery millionaire William "Bud" Post III dies of respiratory failure in Seneca, Pennsylvania. Post had won $16.2 million in the Pennsylvania lottery on February 24, 1988. From a 1993 interview: "Everybody dreams of winning money, but nobody realizes the nightmares that come out of the woodwork, or the problems."

[malevolent]

Buy enough GPUs to perform a 51% attack! :>

Apart from that... start and promote businesses accepting and related to Bitcoin.

[Elwar]

Agree 100%.  Buy a Credit Union.  

I wonder if, at some stage in the bitcoin world, it would make sense for some of the top companies to form a JV and create/buy a credit union/bank in some free banking area, like Panama?  Some grounded, brick and mortar, physical bank that would add one more strong link between Bitcoin and normal financial markets.

Is there value in something like that?

Actually, its in the works! Although not in the immediate future, I'd say definitely within a few years.

I've been flying around the US meeting investors and individuals high in the finance world.
One of my vc's had equity in BankServ, he was responsible for selling the company for $300 Million.
When I met with him last week, he said things would be so much easier for BitInstant and our goals if we buy or start a small Credit Union, and he wants to help us get there

I know the executives of a few exchanges are in talks about it as well.

Hmm, it is a few years

Did anything ever come of trying to start a credit union?