Bitcoin Giveways

[AlexTee]

I was very interested in Edwards very generous Bitcoin giveaway from a few days ago. Due to lack of posts and reputation I didn't bother entering, but it did get me thinking. How important do you guys think giveaways, prizes, etc. are/will be in the adoption of bitcoin? To me it seems like something that is not often mentioned (granted I'm not overly active on forums - so it may be far more common than I assume) but, I think, has huge potential in gaining peoples attention.

I'm not an overly techie person or anything like that but people who know me assume I will be interested in Bitcoin because I am pretty hard-core libertarian in my thinking. As a result, I have discussed Bitcoin with roughly a dozen people, over a beer, in the last year or so. I have had no luck in convincing anyone of its merits by explaining it to them or having them watch videos where much more eloquent people than myself explain it. However once you set them up a wallet and send them a few dollars worth they seem to get it. Owning it and using it leads to them being much more keen on it than they otherwise would be (especially atm when the price is soaring).

So given that there is such a large disparity in the amount of bitcoins owned by early adopters vs the rest of us (it makes the inequality in the real world seem like a communists wet-dream by comparison) how much responsibility do you guys feel is on the likes of Satoshi etc. to share the wealth in terms of giving away/sharing their bitcoins?

I'm not asking in a judging way either, I mean to each their own, private property rights and all that jazz. Rather I'm asking can Bitcoin succeed if those people who own large amounts don't engage themselves in Andresen-faucet-philanthropic-type-behaviour?

[Smartie]

I firmly believe in teaching people to fish, not giving it away. I would much rather have early adopters or any big business owners, create opportunities to earn Bitcoin than giving it away. Where are the days when Bitcoin was booming, when people create competitions for people to enter to gain some Bitcoins.

~ Treasure Hunts
~ Funniest drawings
~ Best Bitcoin photo
~ Bitcoin Jokes

[LiteCoinGuy]

i gave alot bitcoins/bits for free to various people in the last years. even when you just give them 2-3 USD and they have it on their phone, they like to track the price of bitcoin and think about it. that is a good start.

another great way to spread bitcoin is changetip. i do this quite often.

and of course little games like bitcoin millionaer are great to get the attention of people.

next time you discuss bitcoin with a friend: tell him he can download an app in 1 minute and you sent him 5 USD for free! 5 USD! "Real Money" (at least they think that the USD is real and bitcoin is not but that is your door opener )

[AlexTee]

I take your point smartie, giving people bitcoin for drawings, jokes etc. is essentially what I mean when I say give-aways. You cant, to use your analogy, "teach someone to fish" in a class-room though, you need to be out on the lake with a rod and reel. My main point is Bitcoin just needs to be put into the hands of people and once they use it they are hooked. Talking someone into it is, as I said earlier, a lot harder than just "giving" them to someone - and it is a better way to convert one more person to Bitcoin. (That is what I have found anyway). I'm just wondering how the people here think we achieve that?

Just like lite-coin-guy I like to give people a couple of bucks worth and that gets them interested enough to keep checking and stay interested. I think a lot of bitcoin users do this kind of thing, but we are just small fry (to keep with the fish theme). Just imagine if Satoshi gave 0.1 coins to 10,000,000 new users, for whatever reason, that would be incredible and may be enough for bitcoin to hit critical mass. I'm not saying he should do this - its just a thought experiment because , like I said, there is such inequality in the bitcoin economy in terms of how rich the truly rich are.

[MGen]

I've posted movie screen shots on 4chan and cjallenged people to guess the movie and post their bitcoin address to win $10. Maybe a dozen times in the past 6 months. Not really a givaway. Very few takers. Usually the same guy wins all rounds in the same session. Sometimes people don't even try to bother with winning the money and answer anyway if they know the movie. Was thinking it would bring out some competitive motivation to research wallets but haven't really seen that yet.

[indahpgs]

maybe if the film competition in the share to the group Filmmaker, so many who participated,

[LiteCoinGuy]

I've posted movie screen shots on 4chan and cjallenged people to guess the movie and post their bitcoin address to win $10. Maybe a dozen times in the past 6 months. Not really a givaway. Very few takers. Usually the same guy wins all rounds in the same session. Sometimes people don't even try to bother with winning the money and answer anyway if they know the movie. Was thinking it would bring out some competitive motivation to research wallets but haven't really seen that yet.

i guess alot of these people even think:

what is bitcoin?

sounds too complicated...

is it real money?


the good part is that today it is pretty easy to recieve and sent with APPS and Wallets like Copay. we should add that note in the giveaway description.