I'm a big Bitcoin fan myself and I've read plenty of newspaper articles stating that Bitcoin is a ''scam'' a ''Ponzi'', ''tulip bubble'' etc. Almost nobody in the press understands the real value of Bitcoin to online communities, micropayments, its value as a distributed ledger, payments network etc. And unfortunately it is also true that we sometimes cannot really explain Bitcoin to people using real world examples in which it can be better than existing payments options even now. We can mention theoretical workers sending remittances home, bitcoin tips etc. but general public is only interested in that kind of positive news about Bitcoin when it's something big and understandable.
Take for example the guy who received 24 000 USD in Bitcoin just by holding a Bitcoin sign on TV. It made big waves, but ultimately did not prove much about Bitcoin to the people, how it's better than just having a regular bank account. They could argue that anyone could put up his bank account on that sign and people would be able to send the money to him just as easy. Furthermore, the fact that the guy receive so much money was positive when thinking about the health of Bitcoin community, but for general people it was just ''them crazy Bitcoiners, sending coins to some random guy just because he holds a sign''. Try this again in real world and novelty wears off. The greatest thing about that story was that the guy actually gave coins to charity, but nobody in the news mentioned that at all, since it was not advertized before.
What I am humbly proposing is taking one aspect of Bitcoin- it's micro-payments that can be made with ease, and in concert with distributed ledger, easy to create accounts and safe transfer of money, create a sort of a layman's lottery with charitable edge.
Essentially what I have done is:
1) I create a Google e-mail address
2) I created this Blogger blog
3) I created 5 Bitcoin accounts on blockchain.info
4) I copy pasted some QR codes and movie posters.
This all took me about an hour. And I have essentially created a mini lottery, being a total and utter layman in crypto, hashes etc. One of the things that people say is that Bitcoin is hard to use and understand. I want to make them understand that not only it is easy to use. It is also easy to go beyond usual internet forum "vote for the best this and that'' posts and essentially to create a lottery where every vote costs a small amount (in this case 0,0001 BTC or about 9 US cents at today's rate and after the time of voting is over, we can draw the lucky winner who receives the money.
One of the things that regular people who don't know much about Bitcoin respect is ''incentive''. Bitcoin guy holding a sign was a good thing, but people will fail to see where's real world incentive to just send some people Bitcoin. You could say that it was kinda like a charity, but as I said- the same could have been done if he just posted a bank account on that sign and asked to send money.
I have created a lottery so people would have incentive to vote for a movie with their Bitcoin. I also believe it is important to send some part of the money to charity, since it shows Bitcoin working for good. I believe more controversial might be my decision to include myself as a recipient of some of money, but this is only to show the people what could be the organizer's incentive to do such a thing.
At the moment I'm thinking about 70 percent to the winner, 25 percent to charity (perhaps Shaun's Outpost) and 5% to me. I don't know how big is the cut that gambling bosses take, so if you believe it's too much, I can rework charity's and mine percentage more in favour of charity. Or if you think I shouldn't get any percentage, I won't take it.
There are several reasons why I think that the voting ticket should cost 0,0001 Bitcoin.
-One reason is that bitcoin transactions are anonymous, so you can't be sure that I won't just take the money, send to my account and disappear. Therefore 9 cents could be an optimal price for a ''ticket'', as even if 1000 people vote (I would be happy if it happened, but is it realistic?), 90 bucks isn't a fortune to be coveted much. I would be glad if some sort of escrow for a layman existed but I do not see how it can be done that way.
-Other reason is that I see this as a way how all kinds of online ''voting'''things could happen using Bitcoin in the future. Why not make the voting more interesting by making it a small lottery? People won't miss 5, 7 or 9 cents but there would be higher stakes and more thrill to see who wins.
-Third reason is probably that law enforcement won't bother with such a small numbers. I do not intend to steal any funds, but there could be a law about running gambling enterprise or something like that threatening to take this down, that's also part of the reason why some of money goes to charity
The procedure: below 5 films are posted with QR codes and wallet identifiers in numbers. You vote by scanning a code/entering the code and sending an amount of 0,0001 BTC to the address. As Bitcoin is open to everyone to review, you can check and make sure that all transactions stay in the five accounts and see the exact number of transactions and addresses that were there. After the April 1 deadline I write down all the transactions from the winning account on reddit (r bitcoin) and assign each of them a unique number. Then you can eliminate numbers one by on posting in the same thread on reddit, until only one number is standing. That account receives 70% of total money on all 5 accounts, 25 (or more) go to charity and 5 or less to me.
To make sure that lottery is fair, I would encourage only to send 0,0001 BTC to accounts. If you send more, you still participate in the lottery but your voice is as important as those that sent 0,0001. If you want to support this thing you can, of course, send more. I would also encourage to send only one vote from one single account, since later when we eliminate the addresses people might be more prone to take out those addresses that repeat first, believing that it's more fair to people who just send transaction once. Of course, as Bitcoin is not that anonymous, people might also judge addresses worth by checking how many bitcoins there are before eliminating it. That can perhaps in part be remedied by me eliminating some numbers from bitcoin addresses when posting on reddit, as most people wouldn't probably be inclined to bother to go to the account and find out the full address and then see if these were not Winklevosses that sent the transaction. This can still be worked out and I would welcome suggestions.
What I want to achieve: If this is successful I can show that a person does not need to know much in Bitcoin to do amazing things. I mean, this lottery if done not in Bitcoin but using regular dollars would be impossible or at least hard to pull off with all the bookkeeping and a bank probably not being to happy to be spammed by tens and hundreds of people sending some weird money to its account every day. Furthermore, you all know that sending 9 cents via current banking system... IT'S INSANE. While I essentially set this thing up in about an hour.
Furthermore, I intend to popularize this on all kinds of media sites and enourage you to do the same. When people read this post and see this in action, they will see how simple it is and how micro-payments via Bitcoin can really be beneficial to everybody. And I believe everyone has voted for something on the internet once in a life, let's make it a MORE THRILLING experience!
So, then there were movies:
IRON MAN 3
Tony Stark battling his demons:
Vote: 1Q5z21FXa5uQzmxoiXk1orLt6EqEAwDkAi
GRAVITY
Sandra Bullock- in spaaace
Vote: 1HwzLnSQyroTukcYCr3Y8S37JhpeYBv7bW
THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE
Young adult dystopia done right
Vote: 1GdLQ1kseyCTPsdVJyNFanG9D1TtwKiq3W
RUSH
This is actually my favourite, if you like fast cars and/or you are somebody not from US you should see this
Vote: 1NPpefxFuNPUFtHyEH4RZV7hFQ9u8fTXck
THE GREAT GATSBY
Leo DiCaprio has finally reached the age when he can pull these roles off.
Vote: 1LtCoExBiJQxVRnfEvMhU8SUcnSgUk8myA
All links seem to be working. If you are new to Bitcoin, you can just copy one of the links above, go to blockchain.info, paste it into the search window in the right upper corner and see how much Bitcoin these movies enjoy. Currently it's 0 on all accounts.
So... setting up this lottery where everyone in the world can participate in took me about 2 hours and 0 in fees and whatever. Now imagine if I receive 1000 Bitcoins now :D Obviously not gonna happen, but the more people vote, the bigger the case vs Bitcoin naysayers who say that they can do everything with the current system that Bitcoin advertizes so much. EAT IT, SUCKERS! :D
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