Project: Bitcoin Find and Fund

[forsetifox]

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

[SaintFlow]

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



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

[NothinG]

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



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.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

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~

[Andrew Vorobyov]

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

[memvola]

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.

[Andrew Vorobyov]

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.

[Gabi]

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

+1

[Phinnaeus Gage]

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

+1

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

There are hundreds of available edges, things you can add to, subtract from or do to your
product or service. Find an edge and go all the way to it. Going partway is time-consuming
and expensive—and it doesn’t work very well. Going all the way to the edge is the only way to
jolt the user into noticing what you’ve done. If they notice you, they’re one step closer to
talking about you.

It’s all marketing now. The organizations that win will be the ones that realize that all they
do is create things worth talking about

[Andrew Vorobyov]

I consider Seth the only valuable marketing teacher now

[Phinnaeus Gage]

I consider Seth the the only valuable marketing teacher now

I, too, love Seth Godin. I love the tagline on his site: Go Make Something Happen.

~Bruno~

[norulezapply]

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.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

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.

[triplehelix]

+ 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.

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?

[Liberate]

If you have 0.25 bitcoins to workout Ill it.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

+ 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.

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?

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

~Bruno~

[Andrew Vorobyov]

what is your proposal for making bitcoin attractive enough?

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...

[finway]

Another faucet ?

[triplehelix]

+ 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.

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?

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

~Bruno~

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

[triplehelix]

+ 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.

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?

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...

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