Today’s edition includes guest curation from @scottco (again), with guest contributions from @georgeblue94 and long-standing contributor @alinaferry. This newsletter was brought to you in partnership with @connormitchell and @TheBitCult . Tonight’s cover was designed by @andymatias.
Thought @BitsTODAY was gonna serve up some ginger tea, maybe a few biscuits, and some easy breezy Sunday night reading?
This weekend round-up features heavy hitters, ranging from TREASURE HUNTS to BIG NEW PROJECTS and FOUNDER REWARD CONTROVERSY (*sir, this is an olive garden*).
Before we dive in, feeling them Sunday scaries? If you can survive until Tuesday (4/27) @ 7pm PST, we’re looking forward to our first @BitsTODAY clubhouse room. Hosted by @nigeleccles, co-founder of FanDuel, CEO of Flick, and most impressively, a stellar regular contributor on @BitsTODAY. We’ll discuss everything that happened this past week! See you there?
Strap on your parrots and peg legs and bring your weapon of choice (perhaps a pirate’s rapier?) we’re setting sail in 3…2…1 🏴☠️
Guest cover design by @andymatias.
Today’s bits on the menu:
- BuzzClout: Exclusive look at this week’s numbers
- Ubiquitous UX Drops: @paywithbitclout- if Amazon and Bitclout had a baby?
- Cloutifieds: @connormitchell bares all 🍑 for BitsTODAY’s first ever sponsored post
- Founder Flaws: Trouble in creator coin land?
- Treasure Hunt: Who got the booty? Covering the latest heists and hunts on the high-seas
Diamondhands’ drops 💎
#1 BuzzClout
First things first. In partnership with @bitcloutsignal, here’s an exclusive look at today’s numbers:
#2 Ubiquitous UX drops
Hi @BitsTODAY fam, @alinaferry here again.
A little birdie told me that something extremely exciting for creators is coming soon. You may have already seen some of the teaser posts by @paywithbitclout:
Here is what we know so far, courtesy of the group’s Discord:
“At PayWithBitClout, we love creators. We want to empower you and see you grow. That’s why our team develops tools (that will allow) you to receive a fair reward for the art you create. Code name ‘PayWithBitClout’ is a decentralized “Amazon” for digital art, goods, and services on BitClout. We want to build a strong community of creators and add value to the BitCLout platform, shifting users’ short-term thinking to long-term by adding liquidity to the BitClout coin.”
The closed beta launch is currently scheduled for early May. All information above was provided courtesy of @paywithbitclout founders @alisher, @renatavc, and @sergeiwing.
We’ll share more details closer to the project’s launch as we get them. If there’s an Amazon Prime equivalent for this new marketplace, we dare say we’ll be paying up for it ;)
#3 The Cloutifieds: @ConnorMitchell bares all 🍑
Here it is. The moment you’ve all been waiting for (or dreading). We appreciate @connormitchell’s continued support and are pleased to partner with him on our first ever sponsored post in @BitsTODAY. And yes, we know everyone was expecting an ass pic. You can find that here too (*NSFW*). We promise @TheBitCult’s content is just as juicy ;)
Wondering whether you’ll be able to afford your own post in @BitsTODAY in the future? Get in touch — we’re always happy to discuss how we can make great partnerships work.
#4 Founder flaws?
@nvo here for a quick intro before we dive into an op-ed from @georgeblue94. Has investment in smaller and mid-size creators around the BitClout globe slowed of late? It feels like it. Sure, big fish are still attracting big capital. The minnows and tadpoles? Their tide pools seem in danger of drying up.
There’s likely a number of factors at work here. For one, crypto prices have taken a shot across the bow, which doesn’t help the overall cause. What else is smothering the fire that was BitClout investment activity ~two weeks ago though? We’ll let @georgeblue94 take it from here in this special feature:
On 4/14/21 @bluepartyhat revealed that the founder reward percentage would apply to all creator coin transactions, not just those that take place at all-time high coin prices.
The butterfly effect states that a small shift in initial conditions can dramatically change an end outcome, especially in complex systems (like a largely unregulated platform with hundreds with thousands of users). I argue that this small founder reward shift has stifled growth, hurt 99% of creators and might just cause the implosion of Bitclout 1.0.
On its surface, the founder reward change seems like a decent idea. Creators get rewarded more often. Here’s the scenario in which I think it become highly problematic:
- With less incentive to buy coins that aren’t at all time highs, capital flows slow
- Specifically, Bitclout creator coin transactions fall dramatically
- Reduced transactions reduce the network effect that sustains the Bitclout price
- A lower Bitclout OTC price discourages users, starting a negative cycle that decreases transactions even more
I think we’ve seen this begin to play out over the past ~10 days.
The initial idea behind the founder reward was, of course, to reward creators with “equity” in themselves even if they couldn’t afford to buy it themselves. This initial idea, although not perfect, was valuable as Bitclout initially grew quickly. Very few people worried about the founder reward because every coin was ape’ing overnight.
As the platform matured, real creators came online, and serious money was thrown in, that all changed:
Now it seems that existing users are less likely to invest in new users, whose experience thus fails to live up to the rush we all experienced when we joined. Without new users, the network effect that validates the price of Bitclout, and incentivizes transactions is now dwindling. That’s how the founder reward change smothered what was a raging fire. Right now, only those on the top of the BitClout pyramid are still drawing in investment, and it’s hard for other users to climb the stairs.
It’s not too late to make a change and to incentivize more activity on the platform again, though. Founders should be able to leverage a rapidly declining founder reward curve so they own 10 of the first 20 “cheap” coins produced. And from there? Well, we should get creative. If the current BitClout platform doesn’t, I’m sure other developers and nodes will.
#5 Who got the booty?
While weekends can be slow here on BitClout, a consortium of the clout’s finest got together yesterday to bring us plebeians a massive platform-wide treasure hunt.
Each member of the treasure hunt ‘committee’, including the likes of @helenowen, @charliehilton, @ludo, @maebeam and more (total of 12 creators), took a word from the seed phrase of a burner account called @Uncle_Enzo (a character in Snow Crash, just like @Da5id).
Each of the clue posts had a word from the phrase, and also started with one of the letters of “DIAMONDHANDS” as an additional clue to help clouters solve the puzzle. The pirate’s booty? Well, access to the account (and whatever BitClout was in it), of course. “DIAMONDHANDS” also worked as an acronym, so armed with the seed words, the number of permutations of the seed words was constrained.
@maebeam dropped the final clue yesterday afternoon, teasing the importance of 💎🙌, and all of BitClout was off to the races.
At the end of the day, @smartape scored the booty. As writes @CharlieHilton:
“Unconfirmed whether he passed the key around, or others worked it out. I think he basically posted the seed phrase into the main discord. It then got pumped, dumped, looted, repeat. Someone then took the account and locked everyone out.”
Further, today we’ve seen a second treasure hunt taking place surrounding a new whale account, namely @lu1s that also has ties to @Da5id. Whoever is running this hunt is iteratively filling in the seed phrase in @lu1s’s bio as additional investments flow in (read @100’s theory here). And the squad is really leaning into the maritime meme along the way.
Wild times on the high seas of BitClout, that’s for sure. 🏴☠️
Regardless of the outcome, we had so much fun watching these games on the high-seas that we buried the seed phrase for an account throughout this newsletter ourselves. A few hints:
- First word is in the title of this issue
- The words are sequentially sprinkled throughout this newsletter
- The account is @tidyboats (follow it for clues)
- Locked inside is ASG’s favorite organ. Just kidding, it’s 1 BitClout.
Get hunting, @BitsTODAY fam!
Thanks for enjoying another great week of @BitsTODAY everyone. We’ll see you back here tomorrow as we start another week. Have suggestions for topics we should cover in future editions? Be sure to join our discord here. Oh and let’s start a BitClout rally, shall we?
Have a great week ahead,
@BitsTODAY
Want to make sure you’re onboard as we keep hurtling through the Clouti-verse? Don’t forget to sign up for our substack HERE. We deploy every edition (and special features) over there, too.
***Quick disclosure from our future lawyers: Members of the @BitsTODAY team may hold positions in creators featured in our daily editions at the time of publishing or thereafter. If we do, it’s because we believe in them, and intend to hold our stakes for the long-term🐂***
