If you're here on Hive as a committed Hivean, you may know what Hive is, how it came to be and understand a little of what's going on when you post, receive nice upvotes and collect some HBD and Hive Power in 7 days.
But it is worth trying to look at the world through someone else's eyes and I found myself doing that a couple of days ago.
Over the 25 hour fast of Yom Kippur, I found myself binge listening to a BBC podcast from a couple of years ago. I don't go to synagogue and pray, but I do abstain from eating or drinking from sundown to sundown.
The Missing Cryptoqueen
The podcast is about a fraudulent multi layer marketing scam which pretended to be a crypto currency called "OneCoin". It began in 2014 and there is still ongoing legal action and trials in the US. The bottom line is it looks like it scammed people for more than $4bn.
What is a blockchain?
The podcast runs for more than a few hours over 9 episodes spanning from September 2019 to a final episode in August 2020. What it made me do was think how would I know the difference between a complete scam like OneCoin and Bitcoin?
The answer is really how I found Bitcoin: it was in Feb 2011 on the Security Now podcast. The point was, nobody was trying to sell it to me, it was an intellectual oddity.
If someone had come to me and said, buy this information pack about Bitcoin for $300 and I'll give you some information and some "free" electronic coins, I would have been deeply suspicious.
But how many people can tell the difference between a complete scam like OneCoin which, it would appear, never even had their own blockchain (they had a SQL Server) and the very real decentralised world of Bitcoin?
The answer is very few.
Learnings
For those of us comfortable with Hive and other projects like the Value 4 Value system we're building on Lightning for Podcasting 2.0 or @leofinance or the SPK Network or all the other community lead projects... think how you know they're different from a complete scam? Do you know the people, or at least do you know the reputations of the pseudonymous people? What have they done before, did they appear out of nowhere or did they earn trust?
There was absolutely NOTHING "crypto" about the OneCoin scam. It was sold by a tried and tested method of building a Ponzi scheme and a few people at the top made huge amounts of money and down at the bottom, poor people who couldn't afford it, had their money stolen from them in return for worthless records in a database and some plagiarised PDFs.
But the taint rubs off on all of us and we have to deal with skepticism. So it's worth trying to look through the eyes of an outsider when you're tweeting about Hive as the next great thing and lead people slowly in a way that earns trust.
I'll give an update on @v4vapp and @podping soon, this was just something I need to write about. I've just paid out $1000 of HBD which was owed for some dev work I got help with and that's just the start.
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🙌🏻 Very good point, Brian. From time to time, especially when we discover some really cool new thing we tend to be very enthusiastic and that can maybe scare people off. It could be a bit too much for them as an „outsider“ Even more of it is this crazy crypto stuff. 😜
😎 Solution for me is: just cool down a bit, let things settle and then tell people bit more relaxed. That doesn‘t give them the feeling like you said you want „to sell them something“.
I've basically given up on trying to "sell" people on crypto. I usually give them a couple bullet points and tell them that WHEN (it's not if) they are ready to get involved, I can help them get started and answer some questions.
I learned pretty early on that the phrase "People will buy Bitcoin at the price they deserve to buy Bitcoin" is very, very true. No one wants to buy it when it's down. They'd rather smirk at you and ask how it's working out for you. Only when it really starts running do they come back and ask about getting some.
I've come to the conclusion that I can't really take anybody with me on this ride. I can only help the people who come here searching for answers and WANT to learn. I'm still learning myself so it's not a one-way street. Which is why I love being here. Most of us are all here for the same reasons. We want to take control of our financial future and maintain our freedom. Doing it with a community makes it a lot more rewarding IMO.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
I love how they spent 9 episodes and probably a lot of dramatic music to drive home the point. So annoying.
Skip button is your friend...
Remember I was lying on my bed in a thirst and hunger induced altered state of consciousness 😏
Most likely brought on by the hypnotic intentions of the series. LOL
Like anything else, it simply is a matter of sifting through the garbage. There are a lot of scams in cryptocurrency although crypto itself is not a scam. People will use it for nefarious reasons as we know.
The key is longevity. As you mentioned on our podcast, the thing with @podping is simply to keep it running. Time is your ally as a proof of concept. It is find to do it for a test run or for a week or two. But can it keep going for months (and eventually, years on end).
It is the same with Hive. Each passing day, we only get stronger. More time is behind us, proving our use case. We also see more development which shows a continued expansion of the ecosystem.
Sometimes time is the thing that proves the difference. Longevity means something when it comes to confidence.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
I think there is more than just time. OneCoin was operating from 2014 and still in 2019 when this podcast was released, people were pouring money into it. That was almost 2 years after the charismatic founder had just disappeared!
There's a reason multi level marketing is used to sell crap: it's bloody powerful. There's also a fine line where selling crap (like a worthless "information pack" and free "coins") crosses the line directly into fraud and a Ponzi scheme.
Hive could be huge if we had some multi-level incentives to bring in family and friends... thank heavens we don't! Slow but honest growth and utility is far better.
Multi-level marketing is a powerful and cost effective way to sell anything which cuts out the traditional media and advertising industries.
That's why the traditional media emphasises the scams and trash talks and defames legitimate businesses in the space - sound familiar?
Yup. It certainly all depends on the goods or service being sold.
I distinctly remember pre Skype using various cut price telephony solutions that saved a fortune vs the British Telecom direct dial. They were all sold through MLM.
I don't think I have heard of OneCoin but I guess it just requires people to do research. You have to make sure things are working out and crunch the numbers before throwing in money.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
That's very interesting. I didn't know that story so it was very cool to find out about it.
I remember when I first discovered crypto I was very suspicious and afraid it was a huge scam so I decided to stay as far away from it as I could. I could have gotten in even earlier than I did, which is a bit sad but now I'm focusing on the future
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Nice one
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