The Big Summary - Bitcoin Conference
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[b]The Big Summary - Bitcoin Conference[/b]
That was a crazy crazy trip of little sleep, delayed planes and quick meetings. I’m just waking up, let me start making the overall lessons learned:
1. Most everyone I spoke to heard about Feathercoin (except angel investors / lawyers which is another topic). This is result of all the great PR pushes for our teams, the press releases going out to mainstream and the FTC community that constant swarms around initiatives.
2. Don’t believe the BS that Feathercoin ‘tries too hard’ as some of our critics like to point out. Please see #1. Those that believe marketing isn’t a major part of the success of a coin are wrong. This is not an opinion, this is a fact that reinforced over and over and over at the conference. This leads me to #3.
3. “There are other coins besides Bitcoin, Litecoin, PPC, NMC, Primecoin (very few) and Feathercoin?”. I heard this so often it became one of the biggest eye openers of the event. Even those that were familiar with other coins besides Bitcoin/Litecoin didn’t rattle off a single competitor (in the Scrypt category). Not one. So all these ‘X coin to the moon, Feathercoin is dead’ is simply a very small focused community not understanding the bigger picture. Thankfully I had time to educate on the other coins… Phenixcoin and Worldcoin of course. :)
4. Please read #3 again. Every time you come across obviously trolling in ‘certain’ forums, correct it and move on. The impact is ridiculously minimal in Feather’s overall success. Your time is better spent commenting on articles, organizing swarms and beating down doors in the mainstream.
5. FTC/USD on CoinMKT (posted the screenshot in a previous thread). This is big… it’s another step forward that we can use to attract investors. Yes, I have been in contact before with CoinMKT… however, it was the constant show of support of Feathercoin emails that made all the difference. The guys were joking around how they receive constant ‘Please add Feathercoin’ emails. Community, this grassroots approach matters. While it doesn’t always look like your efforts pay off… you could be that last email that makes a company say “Hmm… ok, let’s explore a bit more about Feathercoin”.
6. I had a chance to speak to a number of investors. When asking what really mattered to them, the answers were almost identical:
A. Market cap
B. Liquidity (FTC/USD is a big step)
C. Marketing (Could tie into a killer coin feature, however, overall word of mouth about the coin)
D. Compliance
E. SecurityI’ve yet to hear an investor talk about:
A. ‘The Lolz’
B. Premines
C. Instamines
D. Retargetting
E. Fair Launch
F. (Insert additional trollbox terms)Now, if your coin has no intention of breaking out to real world application, all those terms above make a difference. You’re effectively trading with others that care about the same things you do. Fine. If you’re looking to start getting brick and mortar businesses to consider your coin or investors that are strictly looking at ROI, the language needs to change.
7. I spoke to the CEO on CoinX, she was very sharp and in-tune with what’s going on in the business. She made be promise to contact her about Feathercoin when I get home, that’s on my list tomorrow.
8. MTGox is important, just not as important as I thought before the conference.
Obviously being added to MTGox would be a quite a boost in volume, however, it looks like we’re close to being worth looking at with outside investors. With the addition of FTC/USD going up soon, the security features Bush spoke about, Mark’s SMS and POS system and upcoming bridge functionality… those pieces are enough to be taken seriously outside of the crypto community.
9. Litecoin - My general vibe
I’m sure I’ll get some slack from the Litecoin community with this comment, but they are not the ones that sent me to the conference, you were… so here goes. I was surprised by the lack of excitement surrounding Litecoin (and a bit put off since I own my fair share). Whenever Litecoin came up (just my observation) the talk centered around the huge selloffs planned on MT.Gox rather than being a Bitcoin competitor in the merchant space. Some in their community have been vocal about their disapproval of our constant marketing efforts, I would argue they might want to reconsider that complaint. That’s my own personal experience, take it for what it’s worth.
10. Feathercoin Org Chart
Sometimes we get crap about the ‘overly structured’ org chart at Feathercoin. Critics like to poke fun at it and talk about how it’s unnecessary. That’s exactly the OPPOSITE of what I heard from investors and exhibitors. When I explained there were essentially 3 different communities within Feathercoin working on similar goals, their eyes opened up. While centralized efforts seems to turn off some in crypto in general, that’s not the case with those looking to spend their money. I talked about the 3 communities were:
- Development - Coordinating efforts and developing features
- Structured Community - Org chart
- Grassroots Community - Those that just do their own thing
I look forward to taking what I learned from assisting the Feathercoin community development and transferring some of that experience to the other 2 coins in the partnership.
I’m the first to admit I’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way. Thanks to your hard work, we figured it out as a community and created an approach that will most likely be imitated as our popularity increases.
11. Girls love the pins
Ok, that might have come off sexist. :) There were 2 girls that would try to steal my Feathercoin pin that Ruth sent me every time they ran into me in the networking area. It was funny… I had to admit, in a sea of nerd and investors, that was a nice distraction. Aside from that adventure, I had quite a few people recognize the Feather and come up to me to chat. STRONGLY RECOMMEND each member on this site wear some type of pin supporting Feathercoin. It’s a create starting piece, kudos to the marketing team for developing this for the Bitcoin UK Event. It was an easy way to start conversations.
12. Let’s Talk Bitcoin
Huge respect for the ‘Let’s talk Bitcoin’ crew. I had a chance to speak with Adam who is simply a class act. I’ve always respected our email exchanges, he’s a huge supporter of crypto currency in general and not afraid to share his views. Toward the end of our conversation, he told me to find Stephanie for an interview. Pleasure to meet him.
Stephanie is awesome, period. She told me her feet were tired from the constant interviews and asked if I’d mind sitting on the floor. We popped a squat Indian style and finished a 25 minute interview. I was impressed with the quality of questions, she certainly knows her stuff. As someone that completely understands grassroots, it was a refreshing interview.
13. Alphapoint really intrigues me
The alphapoint guys were great… had a long talk with a few of them on the nature of exchanges and crypto in general. While we are very very very small potatoes in terms of market cap, there are talks of trying a few things with Feather down the road as an investment into the crypto community. Loved the talks, looking forward to following up this week.
14. Investment
I took your investment into my trip to heart. For some of you, you took a weeks worth of mining just to contribute to this adventure. After reading through this update, I hope you feel good about your investment.
I didn’t have a chance to talk to the founder while I was at the event. Every time I made it up to the booth, I was either grabbed for a quick meeting or they were busy talking to other people concerning the charity.
** Action Item ** Investigate and contact.
16. Grassroots conversations
Feather’s grassroots approach seemed to be what most people wanted to talk about with me. That’s good, it means the branding we used in the beginning was getting through. It was hard for some to wrap around the idea of volunteers outside of the hardcore crypto working together. I spoke about how different talents ranging from artists to writers could be extremely effective, you just had to present opportunities and the community would take care of itself.
17. The angel investors during the lecture part of the conference were really straight forward about the need for compliance.
18. While I didn’t have time to demo UKMark’s SMS/POS system which is currently in development, it was something that peeked quite a bit of interest. I’d STRONGLY recommend integrating that piece into the client… even if it’s a link to the sign-up, it needs to be there.
19. UNOCS Bridge delay
While the UNOCS delay wasn’t ideal, it had 0 impact outside of the immediate hardcore community. If the system was compromised and coins were lost, ** THAT ** would have made news.
Please feel free to send questions. Pictures to come tomorrow when I wake back up.
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I’m excited to read the rest of your list. I’m very curious about #3 though. You said that almost everyone you talked to had heard of Feathercoin or was it that most people only really knew Bitcoins and Litecoins?
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[quote name=“tuneman1980” post=“23925” timestamp=“1375328069”]
I’m excited to read the rest of your list. I’m very curious about #3 though. You said that almost everyone you talked to had heard of Feathercoin or was it that most people only really knew Bitcoins and Litecoins?
[/quote]Good question. Because of the cost of attendance, it mainly consisted of people that were already familiar with Bitcoin to some degree. Even with those that didn’t know exactly who we were, the brand was known which says a lot about our continual PR efforts.
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Amazing work, really hope you will represent feathercoin in the future to?!!!
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** Delete (meant to hit modify not quote - tired) **
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** Delete (meant to hit modify not quote - tired) **
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[b]You did a great job![/b] Is this a coincidence FTC value was rising during conference? I dont think so :)
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Thanks, excellent work. DrT
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Awesome work! Sounds like you were an amazing rep. Love how market cap was the first thing that investors had on the list and that has been growing rapidly whilst at the conference… Hopefully they will go back to investigate further and then realise how powerful FTC is…
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Amazing & some really interesting points, I knew you were the man for the job John.
On behalf of the Community, a [size=18pt][b]BIG[/b][/size] thanks for being there!I know I have said it before, but I am really looking forward to what the next few months bring us, the bridge will be a major step forward for Crypto in general and its great that we as a community can be a part of that, from a developers POV I am really looking forward to how I can integrate my ideas also into this project…
…In short, I can’t wait! 8)
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You’re very welcome everyone… it’s your hard work, I just get to be a mouth piece. Hopefully for my critics, you can see I’m still 100% behind Feathercoin’s growth. My decision to focus more on UNOCS will better serve this community as my time will be spent on big ticket items such as investors, exchanges and merchant opportunities.
You are doing a great job, keep up the pressure… people are noticing.
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Thank you for all your hard work and efforts sir. You did us all proud!
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[quote name=“Justabitoftime” post=“23921” timestamp=“1375325106”]
[b]The Big Summary - Bitcoin Conference[/b]That was a crazy crazy trip of little sleep, delayed planes and quick meetings. I’m just waking up, let me start making the overall lessons learned:
[…]
6. I had a chance to speak to a number of investors. When asking what really mattered to them, the answers were almost identical:
A. Market cap
B. Liquidity (FTC/USD is a big step)
C. Marketing (Could tie into a killer coin feature, however, overall word of mouth about the coin)
D. Compliance
E. SecurityI’ve yet to hear an investor talk about:
A. ‘The Lolz’
B. Premines
C. Instamines
D. Retargetting
E. Fair Launch
F. (Insert additional trollbox terms)Now, if your coin has no intention of breaking out to real world application, all those terms above make a difference. You’re effectively trading with others that care about the same things you do. Fine. If you’re looking to start getting brick and mortar businesses to consider your coin or investors that are strictly looking at ROI, the language needs to change.[/quote]
I tell exactly the same for a long time. Serious business doesn’t give a shit about all those tech nonsense. They need a fast, reliable and affordable tool to make even more money in real life. We are on the right track.
[quote author=Justabitoftime link=topic=3130.msg23921#msg23921 date=1375325106]
9. Litecoin - My general vibeI’m sure I’ll get some slack from the Litecoin community with this comment, but they are not the ones that sent me to the conference, you were… so here goes. I was surprised by the lack of excitement surrounding Litecoin (and a bit put off since I own my fair share). Whenever Litecoin came up (just my observation) the talk centered around the huge selloffs planned on MT.Gox rather than being a Bitcoin competitor in the merchant space. Some in their community have been vocal about their disapproval of our constant marketing efforts, I would argue they might want to reconsider that complaint. That’s my own personal experience, take it for what it’s worth.
[/quote]True story. I’ve also heard it many times. People were buying up LTC in large quantity to sell on Gox and make good profit with no effort other than waiting. It didn’t happen, so LTC is on the way down.
[quote author=Justabitoftime link=topic=3130.msg23921#msg23921 date=1375325106]
14. InvestmentI took your investment into my trip to heart. For some of you, you took a weeks worth of mining just to contribute to this adventure. After reading through this update, I hope you feel good about your investment.[/quote]
No doubt :) Sending you to the conference was one of the best investments made recently :D
[quote author=Justabitoftime link=topic=3130.msg23921#msg23921 date=1375325106]
19. UNOCS Bridge delayWhile the UNOCS delay wasn’t ideal, it had 0 impact outside of the immediate hardcore community. If the system was compromised and coins were lost, ** THAT ** would have made news.
[/quote]I have to admit many people, especially those outside hardcore crypto community, consider Feathercoin to be an independent currency doing well on its own rather than an integral part of the UNOCS. It explains well why Feathercoin receives warm welcome at any unbiased event or talk while Phenixcoin and Worldcoin didn’t do very well recently. UNOCS is still a very good opportunity, but it’s just one of them for Feathercoin.
John, thank you for all your efforts at the conference. It was a big step forward.
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It’s great to hear details of what happened during the conference! Hope you had fun there as well?
Really looking forward to the release of CoinMKT and seeing what new things come up with the huge exposure you’ve given Feathercoin while there.
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Awesome work justabit! Sponsoring your trip was the best spent money ever! ;D
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You are the MAN. Very big thanks to your hard work. Maybe we get this thing flying. ;)
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[quote name=“krjalone” post=“23994” timestamp=“1375370898”]
You are the MAN. Very big thanks to your hard work. Maybe we get this thing flying. ;)
[/quote]We’re allready flying compared to other coins ;D
Lets take it to da moon ;) -
[quote name=“svennand” post=“24007” timestamp=“1375377961”]
[quote author=krjalone link=topic=3130.msg23994#msg23994 date=1375370898]
You are the MAN. Very big thanks to your hard work. Maybe we get this thing flying. ;)
[/quote]We’re allready flying compared to other coins ;D
Lets take it to da moon ;)
[/quote]Oh, yes. Even me was impressed by the desperate PXC dump at Cryptsy today from 0.00024 to 0.00007. The price has recovered mostly in an hour, but it was a show to see anyway.
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Yeah… my bot went long at about 9, and sold at 20. I was very pleased, but I feel bad for holders.
