Came across a interesting post on r/icptrader. The context was r/bitcoin rejecting some posts for btc-icp integration. That got me thinking…how are we marketing our serious features, meme-style?
"I am in love with ICP…(a tongue in cheek reply to r/Bitcoin)
My entire history (+1yr) on reddit is on ICP (well 99%) & have nearly 1000 karma points because of it. I am doing something right.
Dear Mr Bitcoin…we are coming for you (in a good way). I know that you want to stay as a store-of-value. But really all store-of-values need to be spent. Your way of spending is not keeping up with the times( no real smart contracts, transactions take for ever, etc…)
Well, the love of my life , ICP, is just about to change that. Icp-btc integration will enable smart-contracts on YOUR network; NO bridging. We will do this with significant state-of-the-art crypography. Yes, you will resist the change for a while; but you will eventually come to realize (just as us postal service did with email/internet) that this is good for you."
A few suggestions:
Transferring data between blockchains is beset with obstacles. The solution thus far has been to build bridges across the obstacles. The Internet Computer takes a radically different approach. It eliminates the obstacles and thus the need for insecure bridges.
The Internet Computer: Unblocking blockchain. Dfinity: the Unblock-chain. ICP: Blockchain unbridged.
we can market by using it and in a viral fashion. Utilize spinner transactions by sending btc maxis shielded microtransactions as a prank and have them scratch their head on where the coins are coming from as just an example. Need to think outside the box. Traditional marketing can be seen as inorganic, need to do something that will catch people’s attention yet at the same time be slightly controversial without being explicitly illegal.
Love the ideas here & agree going unconventional can move the needle. I love the open letter format as well as the viral controversial thought process.
Would anyone here be open to making a small marketing working group and put these ideas in action?
We could build some key terms like these and keep using them over and over again in our marketing to establish them in meme’s etc.
I don’t think talking to the Bitcoin community in such patronising terms is going to work at all. Also, it is ‘stores-of-value’, not ‘store-of-values’. And no, stores-of-value do not need to be spent, they can be preserved for a long time and then sold when necessary or sufficiently profitable. Gold is often handed down for generations without any ‘use’. Finally, the analogy is pretty inaccurate: I don’t see how the internet was good for the postal service, any more than the internal combustion engine was good for horse carriages.
Of course Dominic Williams re-tweeted this, testifying once more to Dfinity’s tone-deafness. Now, I need to spend half an hour on the Cardano forum, which always revitalises my faith in ICP.
I was chatting to a BTC maximalist who wasn’t impressed about the ICP native integration because he correctly assumed that while it is indeed decentralized we would need to rely on the security properties of the IC and the IC smart contracts involved.
We need to really have a big game plan to market this properly. Can’t find Eva’s name with @ sign but perhaps someone can flag this to her. I think if we don’t market the BTC integration WITHIN the BTC communities then we are at risk it is ignored or dismissed. We need the less fundamentalist maxis to take notice. For example, why isn’t someone from Dfinity presenting at BTC conferences?
Just want to flag that we really do need to shout from the rooftops about this. And I am wondering if that is only going to happen after the mainnet integration or if now is the time…
Gold has plenty of use, always had since it was first discovered by mankind and nowadays more than ever being used in electronics. A store of value which only value is “price go up” doesn’t have much value at all.
This is a community driven approach to marketing the btc-integration (as distinguished from advertising mentioned by @paulyoung in Marketing Ideas). We are simply EXCITED about sharing the news!
The demand for this marketing is so strong…take comments from @shruti tweet…
“I want a t-shirt with this picture on the front”
“I am stealing this if you don’t mind”
As @Denis points out, we might antagonize some of bitcoin maximalists. We may not have the terminology just right.
But fundamentally as ICP fans, i think we really really need to get the news out there front-running everything else (the nuances, analogies, spelling mistakes notwithstanding). The btc-integration IS WORKING! Why not let the world know. There is, currently, a significant gap between the vodoo of cryptography in ICP and the layman’s understanding. Who do you think understands (or cares to understand) ECSDA or tECSDA?
I would love for the foundation to jump in and help. For example, can we have a ready-made deck to help give the complete pitch on IC & IC governance? How about a complete deck on SNS? Community Fund? These decks could be used in community driven camps for advertising(as opposed to marketing).
I believe that the original poster’s comment(which i quoted here) on reddit was his/her indgnation to some r/bitcoin mods calling icp a “s…t coin”. So it was a tongue-in-cheek comment; be it be patronizing or not.
BTC is better than gold. Otherwise why bother?
Your other comments : "stores-of value and analogies is exactly why we need/have a community.
I agree with @dfisher that most BTC maximalists won’t trust the integration unless they already trust the IC.
Perhaps the best marketing tool is a viral game that lets users deposit and earn BTC in a completely trustless way. Something social and easy to understand like Wordle―but using real BTC (not even ckBTC).
It would be a prime candidate for hacks. If the game can survive for a few months, then that would put a lot of trust in IC technology IMO.
I think one of the biggest concerns for skeptics is even if the underlying tech is secure, once the chain holds enough value in BTC, nodes might collude and steal them.
So the argument is that IC is NOT decentralized enough from a node provider’s standpoint AFTER it reaches a threshold value of BTC in the chain (in our case one subnet)?
I think that it is , completely a reasonable thing to think about from a Btcmaxi standpoint. I think that we should be addressing that upfront with numbers. As an example, if we have 35 nodes provided by 5 centralized providers, then the cost to buy 3 of those centralized providers may provide the maximum threshold on the amount of btc to hold on that subnet. Or something like that.
@Zane , never said gold did not have any uses, of course it does. What I said was that it is often handed down across generations without being used, which is just a fact, and proves that stores-of-value do not need to be used or spent. The marketing message says, “But really all store-of-values (sic) need to be spent”. This is simply untrue and almost guaranteed to get the Bitcoin gang to dismiss everything that comes after.
I agree that " all stores-of-value need to be spent" is an overgeneralization.
That said, BTC is better than gold in many respects; in particular it’s almost infinite (as compared to gold) divisibility & the ability to store and transport it almost effortlessly.
I would say that BTC as a store-of-value is meant to be used/spent. The verb “spend” is used , most often , to describe the end of an item ( i spent 1$ to buy ice-cream)…but it can also be used to gain something which can later transfered back into btc. For example, i spent 1 btc to provide liquidity for an insurance provider which may return me 10% return (1.1 BTC).
TBH, when i was thinking about “spend”, i was thinking about end of item. My post-facto pseudo defense is after i saw how your point might be valid to btc maxis.
On DFINITY’s side of things, they shouldn’t really focus on marketing until the product is fully ready to go, to have a product to showcase to everyone rather than showcasing a testnet environment. This is why I’m not really bothered much by any lack of marketing efforts for now.
Hi everyone, this is Eva from Dfinity - love the conversations you’re having!
Let me read through everything carefully and then get back to you. In short, at the current stage, we mainly focus on bringing new devs in. @CarstenJ is currently testing the dev onboarding UX. Bigger campaign is planned when CKBTC is live and we can showcase the full potential
