You can make it a "proof of action" type of promotion - with a message to be posted on social media. It probably takes time to manage/follow, but it's what's the coin would need to gain awareness/traction.
I think it would be enough for them to post their address within a screencap of their synced wallet.
Anyone who can't find connections should try my peers.dat, drop it in your appdata folder.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/4b8q6l0yyejm4v4/peers.datDetailed instructions are in this topic, for any newbies struggling to figure it out. And for anyone who is new to the coin, don't hesitate to ask here for help.
Before that, however:
- the number of working nodes should be increased (or a new .conf file shared) - there is no point in getting new people if the wallet doesn't sync.
- also, I don't think it's worth having the promotion without a roadmap..
Hopefully, giving away free coins will result in more active nodes. People will want to leave their wallet staking. Give away coins --> more nodes.
As for syncing, maybe we could host the blockchain for download. When I install a new wallet on a new computer, I like to bring a usb stick with the entire appdata folder from another computer, minus the wallet.dat. It saves you a lot of bandwidth, and about 2 days of waiting for sync to complete.
And as for the roadmap, I have a few ideas:
KEYCOIN ROADMAP Step #1:
Keep Keycoin Running. More users, more nodes. Host the blockchain for download if we need to. Get a DNS seeder if possible, or whatever will help people find connections. Hopefully it won't be a problem when we have more active users, and connections will be easy to find. Big coin giveaway, or as big as we can hope for anyway. We'd be lucky if enough people showed up to get all the free coins I'm offering, but it's okay to start small. 10 more nodes would pretty much double our full-time active connections, so even a few new people would be a huge boost to the community.
Step #2:
Linux Wallet. That's the main thing we need before we can make a bootable KeyOS.
Step #3:
KeyOS.Step #4:
KeyTrader.Step #5:
Payment Processor. I'm working on a website to sell digital downloads of my e-books and mp3 music, and I want to offer 25% discounts for everything when the order is paid with KeyCoin. I'm going to accept fiat, and Bitcoin, but I think anyone familiar with crypto would take a couple of minutes to buy the KeyCoin and spend that instead, to get a 25% discount. They might not hold any KeyCoin after their purchase, but it will help generate constant activity and volume which will keep the market healthy and give people a reason to be confident about adopting KeyCoin. Besides, even if they use it only one time, it gets them familiar with the name and the coin, and they'll be more open to using KeyCoin in the future.
Now, of course I hope that my one website will attract thousands of customers to buy my ebooks and music, and that they'll all pay in Key. But even if my website doesn't do much business, having an easy KeyCoin option for payments could be something that other websites would use too. But it has to exist before anyone can start using it.
My first choice would be to talk with CoinPayments.net and ask them to add KeyCoin to their list of accepted coins. It might help convince them if we promise steady buying at Cryptsy so they can move their KeyCoin tx fees they collect - price doesn't matter, since they use adjustable exchange rates; what matters is that they'll be able to sell whatever they have without dumping the market down 50%.
So think about CoinPayments.net. But if that doesn't work out for whatever reason, we could ask around for devs who have made custom payment apps for individual coins. Like ArtByte, formerly AppleByte, which has just launched a music website with digital downloads all sold for ABY.
Buying online with crypto is so much better than using a credit card or Paypal. You click the song you want, it gives you a unique receiving address for your transaction, and your download starts in a few seconds as soon as the tx is broadcast. You don't have to sign up for the site, no name and password, just send the crypto and get what you want. And since people are already doing it with Bitcoin, and even ArtByte, I think people would do it with KeyCoin. Especially for a discount.
Step #6:
TELL EVERYONE! After we have more users, and more places to spend KeyCoin, which will attract even more users, then we can really start spreading the word. Generate buzz on forums and trollboxes. Promotions, advertisements, interviews with CoinDesk, representatives at conventions. Especially if we have KeyOS and/or KeyTrader, we'll finally have something exciting to talk about. Real reasons to adopt KeyCoin instead of any other coin.
But even without KeyOS, if we have a bigger community and people are selling things for Key, then we already have enough reasons to adopt KeyCoin. Widespread acceptance is all Doge has, and Doge isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
But, unlike Doge with billions of coins, Key has less than 1 million. Unlike Doge with constant inflation and a block reward that will never decrease, Key runs on Proof of Stake.
So KeyCoin is already a good coin. We can make it better, and more people will want it.