HELLO FRIENDS,
Yeah, we’re excited. Not only is it the end of the work week and time for another @BitsTODAY Friday Night Happy Hour…
But it’s the big 0–5–0 for @BitsTODAY tonight 🥂. That’s right, over the course of the past 3 months, we’ve regaled you with an entire 50 newsletter editions, not to mention special editions, weekly podcasts, and innumerable posts on our account from the mind of @ASG. *pats self on the back and dusts off shoulder*
We appreciate all of you for investing your time and attention (and occasionally $clout) in us, sending us your #hottips, and for building a community that has given us so much to write and opine about. It’s all ❤️.
What do we have planned for 050? Well… business as usual today! Next week we’ll be releasing some very, very special drops commemorating the first 50 editions of @BitsTODAY… stay tuned 😎🚀✨
Guest cover image by @DanoPhoto
Bits on the menu tonight:
- BuzzClout: Exclusive look at today’s Movers & Shakers presented by @bitcloutsignal, and introducing… Today in BitHunt presented by @BitHunt! ⚡️
- Ubiquitous UX Drops: QR codes, $clout conscription ⚔️… missing TXs?? 😱
- Feel Good Friday: @Altruism aims high 🔝😇
- General Absurdity: Vanity, in the best way 💅
- @BitsTODAY Op-Eds: Can we make BitClout into a force for artistic good? 🎨
Diamondhands’ drops 🍰
#1 BuzzClout
First things first. In partnership with @bitcloutsignal, here’s an exclusive look at today’s movers and shakers:
Next up, we are pleased to announce a brand spankin’ new partnership with @BitHunt for our daily issues! Introducing “Today in Bithunt,” a daily round up of the projects on BitClout:
#2 Ubiquitous UX Drops: QR codes, $clout conscription ⚔️… missing TXs?? 😱
Yesterday, our current favorite BitClout core team gang member, @lazynina, blessed us all with a slick 💧:
This is a nice step for ease of $clout transfers and ideally, for mainstream adoption, too.
For one, on mobile, these QR codes can be a faster way to transfer $clout on BitClout itself AND a way for $clout to creep onto other non-platform related websites. E.g. as we build our @BitsTODAY website, we can now more easily integrate a backchannel for you to shower us with $clout 😇.
Secondly, at the in-person BitClout events that are proliferating like 🐰 in the springtime, clouters will easily be able to pay for services, swap $clout with the homies, and maybe even buy art or engage with vendors.
Finally, as more businesses come on to BitClout, perhaps these QR codes will be a payment solution for them. A few months back already we saw @SuperLost coffee offering monthly ☕ deliveries to their top coin holders. While they don’t appear to be active anymore, might other businesses pick up this model and bring these new QR codes into the point-of-sale? We have our doubts about payments for goods and services as a primary $clout use case… that said, if this happy hour were IRL, we’d also already have 87 QR codes to pay for 🍻…
In other news on the UX front, creators on clout are now not only encouraged, but actually obligated to buy some of their own coin when they first spawn in the clout-iverse (at least on BitClout.com).
This one’s raised a good amount of debate. Yes, it’s good to educate new users on the potential benefits of buying the first coins on their bonding curve. Still, this feels overly prescriptive if not conscriptive. All creator coin HODLERS … off to battle! ⚔️
In seriousness, it doesn’t make sense for every user or account on BitClout to own their own coins. Some people are here just to lurk, or to spin up charitable projects, or build projects that aren’t open to or currently interested in any investment. To be clear, this isn’t a blockchain-level requirement (it’s just on the front-end of BitClout.com). Still, we’d place this one somewhere between the meh to 🙁 stage on our UX 💧 spectrum.
Next, all is not peaches and gravy on our appetizer menu tonight. There’s plenty of thorny issues the BitClout dev community is still awaiting answers to or updates on (CIP repo, anyone??)
Today’s point of contention? Transactions from the genesis block that are conspicuously missing from the blockchain….
Last but not least, speaking of questions for the dev community, shoutout to @Davidsun (again) for getting the ball rolling on an insightful, comprehensive list of Q’s he’d like to see the core devs answer. Other legends like @tijn quickly hopped in (thread below). While @Maebeam noted she’s got her DMs open on Discord, will we get this as a proper AMA or on-platform community town hall? We sure hope so.
#3 Feel Good Friday: @Altruism aims high 🔝😇
It’s been a long week, complete with plenty of highs and lows (OK, mostly lows on the $clout price side 📉), emergency alerts, and hot goss 🤐💅. Why don’t we end the work week on a high note?
Fortunately for us, @Altruism has been doing all the heavy lifting to make sure we can do so. In what may have been the first ever fiat donation to a 501c3 organization raised through BitClout, @Altruism donated a whopping $4,928 to GiveWell’s Maximum Impact Fund this week:
Founded by @BenOrloff, @Altruism takes 100% of the founder reward received from investments as well as 100% of direct transfers to @altruism and donates them to vetted causes and charities that @Altruism investors nominate and vote on. In this latest round, over 20 people voted on the charity to receive the donation.
In a separate post @BenOrloff had this to say about the most recent donation:
“I’m very proud of what we’ve accomplished here together. Nearly $5k donated to charity, thanks to YOU! 🙏🏼 This is the culmination of over a month’s work. Now we start raising again for the next donation 💪🏼 Don’t forget to follow @Altruism and buy if you can ❤️”
Go on, Ben!!! We’re amazed by your dedication and hard work here. Let @Altruism be a reminder to all of us in the BitClout community that we’re here to do good and grow together. Good energy, diligent work, and a little selflessness can all compound the same way great financial investments do 📈.
Before we move on, what’s @BenOrloff’s long term goal for @Altruism, and how can you get involved? Here’s Ben again:
“I’d love for altruism to become the channel used by other projects when they want to donate a percentage of their proceeds.”
If you’re looking for a way to give back, an investment in @Altruism is a @BitsTODAY certified #goodmove.
#4 General Absurdity: Who can say no to a little bit of vanity?💅
While the $clout price threatens to sour the mood here in this Happy Hour, @MarkBentley is single handedly making sure the absurdly positive vibes keep flowing. His latest contribution to the BitClout cause? Have a look at what we have here 👀
Just so we’re clear — in a single shot, that’s:
- A @BitsTODAY x @CharlieHilton t-shirt (want one? Get it here)
- A BitClout logo tattoo (cc: @whoami)
- The latest addition to the crop, the first ever BitClout vanity plate 🚗 (!!!)
The plate, which @MarkBentley has been awaiting for weeks and which the @NachoAverageCall team helped him stylize, finally arrived yesterday. And of course, in @NachoAverage fashion, @MarkBentley put the plate on is car live on the call!
Cheers for keeping things fun and positive around here; next rounds on us, @MarkBentley! 🍺
In other general absurdity news and somehow still involving the legend @MarkBentley (you’re everywhere, man!) … the debate about he who shall not be named 🧙 (it’s a joke people, we aren’t picking sides) continues to roil the clout. @HPaulson and @RajLahoti conducted a largely civil debate yesterday about Raj’s presence on the platform. Shoutout @cloutforum for hosting, too!
We’re not going to recap it here — let’s keep the BitClout community moving forward. We’ll let you explore the debate if you so desire (see here).
#5 @BitsTODAY Op-Eds: Can we make BitClout into a force for artistic good? 🎨
For our last act today, we’ve got an op-ed by @joshua_cottrell. Many thanks from the @BitsTODAY team! The Happy Hour floor is all yours 🎤 (please don’t screw this up).
Social media permeates every aspect of our lives, from staying updated on our friends to deciding what we buy and where we go out to eat. It’s fundamentally ingrained into the choices we make every day.
As an artist, I’m fascinated by the impact social media has on our creative work. We see the rise of the art-selfie and museums specifically designed for instagrammable moments. We also see more artists making their work visible to the world than ever before. Instagram is packed with millions of artists fighting for recognition.
Those millions of artists posting to social media have lead to a few interesting phenomena:
1. It’s virtually impossible to rise above the noise and get noticed as a new artist — even if you’re incredibly talented
2. It’s equally hard to comb through all the noise to find high quality content — because there is no barrier to posting your work
3. People are optimizing their art to maximize their chances of getting noticed on social media — higher volume, lower quality, optimized for a tiny mobile screen, etc
That last phenomenon is the one I think we all need to consider more deeply on BitClout. I believe we have a big opportunity to mitigate the consequences of optimizing art for a social media environment.
So what is different about BitClout and how can it be used to help mitigate this issue?
The primary feature to focus on is micro-transactions via diamonds. Those sweet, sweet diamonds fundamentally change the incentives on BitClout when you compare it to a platform like Instagram. Instead of trying to maximize impressions and vanity engagements, on BitClout we are optimizing for the meaningful exchange of value. In a sense, 💎💎💎s are changing hands, and everybody who diamonds your work is acting a bit like a patron.
The first positive effect we see is that artists go from seeing zero $$ for their posts to some potential earnings on each post. That’s a big improvement over posting in exchange for worthless instagram ‘likes’.
But we’re still left with a big problem — will artists optimize their art to get diamonds? Will the short term return of a few cents per diamond lead to artists creating lower quality art that can be done quickly and is just designed to grab your attention when you scroll through your feed?
The answer is probably ‘yes’.
But there’s a solution, and it’s the next big feature that everyone is discussing for BitClout — NFTs.
If you’re on the ‘gram, nobody is going to buy your artwork on the platform. Only a fraction of a fraction of people that scroll past your posts will ever interact with you in any meaningful way outside of the Instagram feed. But on BitClout, they’re building in NFTs that would (theoretically) allow people who see your art and instantly make a bid to have some ownership of that art, all without leaving the platform.
Those bids for NFTs will probably be worth far more than a diamond and could incentivize people to make high quality art for art collectors. The primary incentive isn’t just diamond interactions any more, it’s creating art that people actually want to collect. That’s a huge shift from traditional social media platforms.
So what can we all do as BitClouters to bring about this wonderful artistic future?
The first thing is to buy NFTs for the art you love. I expect the market will get very saturated very quickly, so my guess is that the prices will be fairly low.
Of course, NFTs haven’t been released on BitClout yet. So what can you do in the meantime? Invest in artist’s creator coins! With NFTs on the horizon, why not go and invest in an artist before they’re given a huge new avenue for delivering value? This isn’t investment advice, and you need to do your own research, but I personally think that artists are looking like the next frontier for BitClout and I want to get ahead of it.
Annnnnnnd scene. There you have it. Friday night happy hour has come to an end, and so has the big 5–0 issue. Thanks for supporting this beautiful disaster we call BitsTODAY. Here’s to at least like 10 more of these puppies. BitClout to the moon baby! BitClout to the moon. 🌙
Peace and blessings,
@BitsTODAY
P.S. — BTFD ya nerds!
