Topic: [MARKETING]Get ZeroHedge to publish an article about Bitcoin - page 3. (Read 11369 times)

There at least you can point to a legitimate use of BTC.

Actually, a story about a ponzi scheme in bitcoin may not be so much of a bad publicity for bitcoin. You can argue it's a definite proof it has value And it's a good occasion to debunk the fact that bitcoin in itself is not a ponzi.

Also, attracting people from ZH might be a way to make the community less susceptible to scams. Pretty sure the average ZH reader would reach the good conclusion when he'll see 7%/weeks.

I have a draft of something that could be used for zerohedge as well.  It would have to do with incentive restructuring, and the elimination of wealth concentration and centralization without requisite transparency that drives accountability and how bitcoin fits into this.  I have a zero hedge account as well.

Agreed that Bitcoin is part of the solution, I would just expand that to Bitcoin+Gold and not Bitcoin by itself, as with that combo all possible armageddon insurance scenarios are covered and, most importantly, it will make the goldbug part of the ZH audience more receptive.  They already understand why the system will fail, and why gold is needed as insurance.  All we need to do is explain the scenarios where gold fails (transport, divisibility, detectability, storage) and how Bitcoin works well in those scenarios.

Positioning bitcoin as the solution to the current broken fiat money system seems like the right approach to me.

Better Money

As the world deals with $200 trillion in debt, with most "advanced" economies relying on a democracy-fiat system that represents a one-way mathematical function toward a debt spiral, it is obvious to many that our current worldwide money system is broken. The current run to US bonds is not a flight to "safety," but a flight to the current "lesser of evils." Politicians from Greece to the US promise more and more while allowing the free market to produce less and less. Rational people are seeing that the crash of '08 is a mere precursor to the ultimate and inevitable worldwide sovereign debt disaster. A better system is needed.

A better system starts with better money. Money that doesn't give election-cycle prioritizing politicians free reign to promise the world to the masses while delivering nothing but debt and inflation. Many advocate a return to the gold standard in order to tie politicians' hands, while others propose various revisions to the Fed and other central banks. However, as is often the case, the market itself has developed, and is increasingly embracing, a powerful solution that's growing from the bottom up: bitcoin.

Consider a monetary system that offers perfect information. A system that broadcasts its intentions to the world with mathematical perfection. A system whose formula cannot be manipulated by politicans (or anyone, for that matter), thereby eliminating the entire notion of monetary uncertainty. A system that offers what gold and other classical "hard money" offers: limited supply, divisibility, portability, homogeneity, recognizability, durability...but which is also fit for the modern electronic world where funds zip across the Internet and most money is simply an account entry "in the books."

Sound too good to be true? Perhaps. But while none of the world's debt problems have been solved and while Mr. Bernake contemplates buying up yet another round of Uncle Sam's bonds, the bitcoin experiment quietly grows, rejecting the entire theoretical basis of fiat currency and a politically-controlled elastic money supply.

Bitcoin is a decentralized, mathematically fixed-supply currency. Through its use of indisputable cryptography, it has made possible, for the first time in human history, a money supply that cannot be altered by any central authority. It is also fully designed for the modern electronic era. Sending funds internationally no longer requires a hefty wire-transfer fee, several hours (if not days), and transmission of sensitive identity and account information through an insecure electronic banking system. Senders and receivers of bitcoin can be anywhere in the world.  People can quickly, easily, securely, and psuedo-anonymously send bitcoin to each other over the Internet from myriad devices (computers, tablets, phones, etc). Bitcoin is how money should work in the modern economy.

The bitcoin experiment is young, and its future is unknown. But it doesn't take too much vision to see that, like the fledgling Internet of the late 1980s, it has the power to disrupt the status quo like few innovations before it. Control of money need not be in the hands of government. The Internet democratized and decentralized information. Bitcoin democratizes and decentralizes money.

Question is, should we really be targetting the "gold bug" demographic? Zerohedge seems to have other groups in its audience as well, and marketing Bitcoin as being too similar to gold could put them off. A common misinterpretation of the "21 million coins" limit seems to be that the coins are indivisible. And how do we make newbies read the damn FAQ, when everyone thinks they're a financial guru?

One suggestion that comes to mind is pitching the article as a call for more developers to join in, and really make positive use of Bitcoin's beta tag. Bitcoinica turned out to be a bit of an embarrassment, so here's an opportunity to do something better with Bitcoin.

Edit: they seem to love busting scams at ZH, so let's get their brains working on something productive for once ;-)

Okay, I finally got around to completing an article for Zero Hedge. Please let me know any suggestions. Also, does anyone have a ZH account for submission? It looks like it takes 4 to 7 days for new account approval. If nobody has an account I'll create one there and submit. I hereby release this into the public domain. Please feel free to use as you like.