Originally published on Yours.org on September 14, 2018.
Congratulations to Ryan X. Charles and his team on the launch of Money Button!!!
Yesterday’s launch was received with a mixture of excitement, some constructive feedback, and a tiny bit of trolling (e.g. “what’s the point? what’s the big deal?”).
I think Money Button will be a wave-maker for the surfers and content creators of the internet. People can more easily exchange value with micropayments or tipping over the internet (content for crypto/magic internet money), without needing get into credit card subscriptions for example.
What is the point? The point is to spread it (BCH).
[side note: I am a bit conflicted about the “BCH PLS” and “spread ’em BCH” shirts that are floating around. The positive sentiment behind these slogans is understood amongst a very small subset of the crypto “community”, and totally misunderstood by the rest. Although I get it (“bee see aitch, please”), these phrases are easily interpreted to be misogynist even if that’s not the intent. I think it’s almost become an inside joke, so probably not as useful for convincing mainstream people into adopting Bitcoin Cash moving forward. This is not a snowflake complaint but an objective assessment of this particular marketing angle. Rather than complain more, maybe this is an opportunity to work on some alternative t-shirt designs. Like, who am I to try and convince people what shirts to wear? If you like the shirts, just ignore my impressions. Heck, I even featured them in many previous doodles!]
However, OG Bitcoiners and serious business people know that in order for this thing (Bitcoin) to succeed as digital cash for the world, we do need to spread it to the hands of as many people as possible on Earth, as quickly as possible.
Or, in the words of the Bitcoin Cash Association:
Our mission is to help Bitcoin Cash (BCH) serve one billion users within five years.
BCH enthusiasts gonna have to make useful things (companies, products, etc.), buy products and services in BCH (spend and replace is a recommended strategy) and get busy tipping on a lot of content (preferably, content that actually resonates on a personal level, as attention is currency and money talks)! Money Button will help value exchange to occur, but there’s no guarantee that installing it will bring results. Content creators gonna have to get busy figuring out how to provide value to other humans, and work hard to earn attention/currency.
On a personal note, yesterday’s Money Button sign-up was pretty easy and loading my new Money Button wallet was a piece of cake (if you have experience using Bitcoin Cash). Initially I was a bit confused whether I’d need to set up a new account (or if it was possible to use my Yours.org account) but a quick question on Twitter confirmed the former (to set up a new account). I was using Firefox on a laptop. I haven’t tried using Money Button on mobile yet. I saved my new wallet mnemonic and tried tipping on some websites with Money Button installed. Success! The little party confetti thing is the cherry on top, after sliding the button. I’m looking forward to seeing how this grows.