Topic: raising awareness by giving away private keys (Read 4374 times)

Can I have a sample? I want to assure the quality of your product

For reference, here's a couple of threads related to a problem along similar lines:

  https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/occupywallstreet-idea-massive-promotion-45881
  https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/donor-thread-for-occupywallstreet-bitcoin-promotion-45943

and if it will do you any good, here's a link to some code I hacked out which takes lists of 'hashes' and forms them into sheets with 10 business-card sized things each to be printed.

  https://github.com/tvghub/tvghub/tree/master/proj/bitcmp/trunk/print/pub

I had some thoughts along the lines to develop a system which one could run multiple 'campaigns' either educational or commercial.  The 'hash lists' would form the communications between the back-end machinery (where people go if the scan the QR or tap in the deliberately short URL) and the material handed out.  This would facilitate dynamic value adjustments.  And, again, avoid any need for a user to give any information about themselves.

I've lost interest in such a thing for the time being.  The code was just hacked out enough to successfully get a few card sheets printed off then abandoned, but it might have some ideas you can use.

Wow, it certainly could! Ala Gowalla or flash mobs.

Kill two birds with one stone. Businesses would jump onboard for the obvious business promotion and potential side sales, so we get new Bitcoin businesses signed up, and it adds another fun dimension to the game for players  

could this idea be commercialized and bootstrapped via bitcoin merchant support? customers could follow qr codes and urls that link to a bitcoin market place/set up your first wallet site.

Geohashing looks fun

There are lots of ways to potentially set something up. In that treasure hunt game, as I recall, most everything - gameplay, riddles, etc. - was contained in the game, and you could talk with others online. However, I do think there may have been some real world components too. For example, extra clues might reference a structure in front of some museum, or maybe something found in the largest library in Los Angeles. Teams formed with an understanding to split the prize. It got to be a pretty popular thing.


I liked your original idea, but thought it fairly small scale, with marginal effectiveness. However, you may have given inspiration for something much larger. You (or anyone) can of course continue taking any actions you want, but I'm thinking we collectively might also explore a larger game based project, and maybe pool a prize of several thousand dollars to add some kick.

Thanks to all who commented so far. Lots of idea were thrown around, from "don't waste your time" to puzzles to geocashing. I'll get to it this weekend, most likely with a simple QR code, brief explanations, and pointers to a few Web sites.

It reminds me of Geohashing, a similar sport to Geocaching >> http://wiki.xkcd.com/geohashing/Main_Page

I *love* this idea.  Combined with the new bitcoin bills that actually look like money (people would assign value to them just by looking) this is great.

What would be 100% better would be a site like WhatIsBtc.com that you could print on the back of the bill, think of it as an analogy for WheresGeorge.com.  The site would educate from a zero-knowledge to having setup a wallet and imported the bill, then what to do next.

OMG That is brilliant!

I started to play a game long ago, can't remember the name of it, but it was soon after the Internet started taking off. This game came from a traditional computer game maker, a riddle/treasure hunt game, but the exciting thing about it was it adding an "online experience".

There was a real world prize, maybe like $100-500K or something, and you could talk with other players online and see how far they had gotten. I never had the chance to follow through more than the entry screens of that game, but I always thought it or something like it had HUGE potential. People love things like mysteries, riddles (really tough ones!), and scavenger hunts. They also love interacting with one another online, so merging these things can exponentially increase the fun.

If something like this could be created using Bitcoin the resulting word-of-mouth (best form of advertising) viral marketing could propel Bitcoin forward by leaps and bounds.

Let me think more on this...

This is a brilliant idea, but it could be a treasure hunt - the easy to find QR codes should draw people into something more involved. They could link to a website that provides a clue to the next location leading them closer to the bounty.
There could be a process that encourages people not only to search but also to contribute bitcoins and leave clues for others - it could expand beyond the campus and to the wider world..

Yes. We are educating the market. Selling Bitcoin to people is like going back in time 1000 years and selling people on the idea of radio. They would consider it evil magic and label you a witch. It's not going to be easy to market Bitcoin until we have "magical" devices that look shiny.

Voorhees (at least) had the same idea a year (at least) ago.  Worked on it some but as far as I know it went nowhere.

I wanted to have two pools:

 1) distributed samples which were picked up and 'registered' by interested new users.

 2) funding pools by interested rich folk.

Basically things would be dynamic such that the samples (probably Instawallets) which ended up being active (which I suspected would be a small percentage) were funded over a period of time (but primarily on-demand when initial use was detected.) The main goal...or mine anyway...was to get people using Bitcoin a bit, transfering them around, and generally learning the ropes, and a big part of that was getting them to _good_ info and wouldn't be ripped off or taken advantage of by all the sharks in these waters.

A further refinement was that funders maintained their control of the funds (their portion of the funding pool) and could withdraw their support or add to it depending on their perception of the direction of the campaign.

I didn't expect the implementation would be terribly challenging, and it was important to me that the new user need not give up any info that was not necessary (which would be effectively zilch.)  This as opposed to registering a username and password to some system in order to claim funds or something.  There were some differences of opinion on some of these things.  More than anything though I came to the conclusion that Bitcoin was not right for most people at that time.  I still hold that opinion but my contention is weakening as time goes by.

no they must be presented with a real bitcoin paper wallet, and should be directed to go to mtgox to redeem it
the idea is to get people to 1) learn about bitcoin 2) join bitcoin
its not about spoon feeding them some bitcoins
its about rewarding new people interested in bitcoin, and hoping to get them involved

At least just link to a pre-funded instawallet account or something.

Also, keep in mind that being pushy makes normal people think they're being scammed, especially when every bitcoin user stands to gain from increased adoption. It's like advocating gold.

You want to raise awareness by the most difficult means possible?  You think the average person will go through all that is necessary to redeem a private key and spend it or exchange it and then say "yeah this totally beats the ease of the paper in my wallet that everybody already accepts"??

Allow me to be blunt: while it sounds cool, this idea is a waste of time and an example of old-fashioned reasoning.

This is year 2012, people.

Bitcoin is the exact kind of thing that can spread virally, like wildfire, without any marketing
campaign - provided that a killer app emerges and that it becomes a little bit more user-friendly.

As an aside, I do think it'd be interesting to leave some btc private keys around to get a feeling for the level of bitcoin adoption. If they don't get redeemed, you can be sure people don't know what bitcoin is. Just be discrete about it; maybe a qr code with the letters btc.

I could see newspapers putting puzzles in them that when solved will award the prize to the first person who claims it. Or maybe as an advert for some business related to Bitcoin. But in that case I think the prize would need to be bigger than 10 cents.

If you saw a puzzle (sudoku, crossword etc) in an advert that said "Solve this, and do this to instantly claim your $100 prize". Would you bother? Given how pricey ads are the prize isn't much more and it could be an effective gimmick - but only if it relates to you business. Let's say you were trying to gain local publicity about a new international money transfer service.

By making it a puzzle/game you are enticing people into finding out what this stuff is about. Something they may normally just ignore as technical jargon becomes a game to figure out.

yes I've had the same feeling behind this idea for a long time.

but i always wanted to try it.

I agree that's a worst case scenario.  I'm just suggesting that handing someone a gift in person might be a better way of generating interest.  I like the generosity of the idea though, and I'd like to hear the results.  Try it.