Bitcoin’s market position needs a Mad Men style face-lift. Since its inception it has grown immensely, however Bitcoin never spent any money on a Marketing budget. There was no one person to pay to think about. In reality, it really doesn’t ever need to. But framing how Bitcoin could better market itself can only ramp up adoption of this worldwide settlement layer in the hearts, minds, and wallets of many. In this spirit of this goal here are 10 Marketing Tips for Bitcoin.

Start denominating bitcoin purchases and your expression about them in Satoshis. Make this well known. Run this all over twitter. Change the narrative.

Psychologically people don’t want something if they can’t own one of it. Nobody wants to own part of a house, half of a car, or a third of a hammer. For this same reason people don’t want to buy .01 BTC. Bitcoin represents secured digital property rights and as such is an incredible technology, but this instinct toward wholeness in people is a marketing impediment for Bitcoin.

Accept that wholeness is an important psychological base layer for any purchase of a tool or commodity, and that bitcoin needs a re-frame if it’s going to conquer this hurdle.

The key ingredient here is to denominate in Satoshis. When you buy .01 BTC the importance of the value of its sub units needs to become the sociological base-layer of the experience. There are 100 Million Satoshis in every bitcoin. You didn’t buy .01 BTC, bro, you bought $1M Satoshis. That’s a lot! It’s theoretically plausible that one day much or all of finance will be denominated in Satoshis and that people may not even be acquirable for fiat, instead they may only be accessible via trades for hard goods or real services.

Money is meant to be a good medium of exchange. Bitcoin, even with its 10 minute blocks is not a good medium of exchange. (Granted anon, lightning network solves for this with a L2 layer of trust = not base layer. But set that aside for now). By the time I bought an espresso and waited 10 minutes at my local coffee shop for the transaction to settle, it would be cold. Similar to how we don’t walk into a restaurant and pay for our dinner in gold bitcoin is not meant to be a medium of exchange. Bitcoin is meant to be a store of wealth. It’s probably a better marketing move to push that bitcoin like gold is a store-house of wealth that protects against the dilution of value of fiat currency via inflation and is not an ideal medium of exchange. Take the L.

Many no-coiners think bitcoiners want bitcoin to be money. Repositioning this narrative with the angle that bitcoin stores our dollars that we don’t need today in an energy container called bitcoin, for purchasing power that we may need tomorrow, could help with adoption.

Bitcoiners rightfully presume that if and when we draw upon that energy (with a low enough time preference) that it will be converted back into whatever currency is suited for a particular need, market, or jurisdiction, with a greater measure of power.

A recent headline from The Rug went something like this, “Bitcoiners File for 501(c)3 Religious Tax Exemption.” Let’s admit that the Bitcoin maximalist conviction is critical to the success of the network and the hodl mentality of its participants. However, the religious zealout undertones of that conviction isn’t helping adoption. Let religion be religion and finance be finance. Separation of God and Coin.

A no-coiner coming into bitcoin listening to someone on twitter call them “fiat fed cux” doesn’t make somebody want to participate in the network. Bitcoiners would do well to hold fast to the radical nature of their belief in the network, but present it with a little bit more panache. Blunt, rude, crass, anger doesn’t attract converts. Kill them with kindness.

The red eyes in the profile pictures squad? Not working. It looks like an army of demons. Not to mention it obfuscates the face of a person, which if you do believe in God, is a reflection of that divine image. I get the meme, laser focus, but can’t we find a better way to connote our conviction in bitcoin? Ethereum’s ultra sound money (bat + sonar) symbols are nice because they don’t change the face of the PFP. Bitcoiners could - gasp - emulate ethereum by finding emojis that connote a hard cap of 21 million, and add those to our profiles instead.

Regardless if Bitcoiners believe every type of coin or token that is not bitcoin to be a “$#it coin”, this is not helping bitcoin adoption. What it reads like is insular non-open mindedness. It doesn’t read high-conviction like it actually means. If bitcoiners can’t accept that Ethereum has provided a new worldwide settlement layer for over-collatoralized lending and borrowing, and a more robust smart contract for greater functionality, then just keep it to yourself man. Sotheby’s is selling Beeple’s art and the currency bids are a host of fiats, Yen, Pound, Dollars, and ETH.

Instead lets reposition any criticism of not bitcoin as an acknowledgement that blockchains like ethereum solve for different use cases that bitcoin does not want to. It’s not that bitcoin couldn’t solve for those issues but that it has purposefully ossified itself to do one thing really well, security, and nothing will stop that.

People are going to collect NFTs on Solana, Donald Trump launched his PFP project on Polygon, and L2s are surprassing L1 transactions on mainnet. Let’s stop calling the world that is growing up around us $#it coins. We look like a angry stubborn grandpas. Just say, “other blockchains have different use cases bitcoin is a store of wealth.”

Us bitcoiners that heard about this stuff in 2012 or earlier, and had the good head space to act on what we learned, are not gods, we’re just early-adopters. That’s it. Being right too early, and not having conviction in your truth, is tantamount to being wrong. Think of people that dumbed bitcoin under $100, or $1,000. I’ve heard podcasts of bitcoiners back-slapping each other for being so smart, and that they’re going to run the world. On some level as BTC becomes the most powerful store of value on the planet there will be commensurate energy to be allocated by holders. And, this is better than people running the world who print money and steal value from holders of it. Indeed, bitcoiners have proof-of-concept, proof-of-time, and proof-of-work. This is all well-deserved. Good job. But we’re not God, so wind down the narcissim.

This may fly in the face of a top 10 list on marketing but it is possibly the most clutch. This is a strong point made by a bitcoin maximalist named Alex Svetski. He goes pretty hard in the paint on bitcoin which respect. Svetski nailed the concept of The Remnant, that bitcoin is meant for those who find it and not everyone. This is a key marketing concept for adoption. By not wasting time trying to “convert” someone who isn’t ready to understand bitcoin, we’re allocating more intelligent attentions into domains where someone is. Know our audience. Bitcoin isn’t for everyone.

Be a part of the value for value network. Podcast apps like Fountain, let someone listen to their usual podcast (any cast with an RSS feed), earn Satoshis, and then send “spikes” of sats to the creators they enjoy. This attention economy, and other formulations like it around sports, film, or music, is certainly a major marketing opportunity for bitcoin. Be on the forefront of applications and systems that deliver these value-for-value platforms without compromising custody, and help improve the UX/UI. Let’s give our bitcoin to each other to show what we pay attention to.

Yes we know the Federal Reserve is neither “federal” nor has any “reserves”. Brilliant designer, engineer, and architect Buckminster Fuller once said:

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

We have the new model that could make central banks obsolete or at the very least less relevant. This sagely advice from Fuller illustrates the problem with going ham on corruption, coercion, and theft in the traditional banking system.

If we take the energy placed into expressing what was wrong with the previous system and redirect it like BTUs into the ability to expand and implement the “new model that makes the existing model obsolete” we’ll have an immediate duel effect: Look a lot less pissed off and have a remedy that people can focus on.

Not everyone needs the historical lesson on why banks are bad. However, those whom are ready for it will want to learn about how bitcoin can secure their property rights, and protect them against the inevitable onslaughts of an unpredictable tomorrow.

Frank America is an author, researcher, comedian, and musician. He is Co-founder of The Rug and a Content Manager at Bankless Publishing.

Bitcoin’s market position needs a Mad Men style face-lift. Since its inception it has grown immensely, however Bitcoin never spent any money on a Marketing budget. There was no one person to pay to think about. In reality, it really doesn’t ever need to. But framing how Bitcoin could better market itself can only ramp up adoption of this worldwide settlement layer in the hearts, minds, and wallets of many. In this spirit of this goal here are 10 Marketing Tips for Bitcoin.

Start denominating bitcoin purchases and your expression about them in Satoshis. Make this well known. Run this all over twitter. Change the narrative.

Psychologically people don’t want something if they can’t own one of it. Nobody wants to own part of a house, half of a car, or a third of a hammer. For this same reason people don’t want to buy .01 BTC. Bitcoin represents secured digital property rights and as such is an incredible technology, but this instinct toward wholeness in people is a marketing impediment for Bitcoin.

Accept that wholeness is an important psychological base layer for any purchase of a tool or commodity, and that bitcoin needs a re-frame if it’s going to conquer this hurdle.

The key ingredient here is to denominate in Satoshis. When you buy .01 BTC the importance of the value of its sub units needs to become the sociological base-layer of the experience. There are 100 Million Satoshis in every bitcoin. You didn’t buy .01 BTC, bro, you bought $1M Satoshis. That’s a lot! It’s theoretically plausible that one day much or all of finance will be denominated in Satoshis and that people may not even be acquirable for fiat, instead they may only be accessible via trades for hard goods or real services.

Money is meant to be a good medium of exchange. Bitcoin, even with its 10 minute blocks is not a good medium of exchange. (Granted anon, lightning network solves for this with a L2 layer of trust = not base layer. But set that aside for now). By the time I bought an espresso and waited 10 minutes at my local coffee shop for the transaction to settle, it would be cold. Similar to how we don’t walk into a restaurant and pay for our dinner in gold bitcoin is not meant to be a medium of exchange. Bitcoin is meant to be a store of wealth. It’s probably a better marketing move to push that bitcoin like gold is a store-house of wealth that protects against the dilution of value of fiat currency via inflation and is not an ideal medium of exchange. Take the L.

Many no-coiners think bitcoiners want bitcoin to be money. Repositioning this narrative with the angle that bitcoin stores our dollars that we don’t need today in an energy container called bitcoin, for purchasing power that we may need tomorrow, could help with adoption.

Bitcoiners rightfully presume that if and when we draw upon that energy (with a low enough time preference) that it will be converted back into whatever currency is suited for a particular need, market, or jurisdiction, with a greater measure of power.

A recent headline from The Rug went something like this, “Bitcoiners File for 501(c)3 Religious Tax Exemption.” Let’s admit that the Bitcoin maximalist conviction is critical to the success of the network and the hodl mentality of its participants. However, the religious zealout undertones of that conviction isn’t helping adoption. Let religion be religion and finance be finance. Separation of God and Coin.

A no-coiner coming into bitcoin listening to someone on twitter call them “fiat fed cux” doesn’t make somebody want to participate in the network. Bitcoiners would do well to hold fast to the radical nature of their belief in the network, but present it with a little bit more panache. Blunt, rude, crass, anger doesn’t attract converts. Kill them with kindness.

The red eyes in the profile pictures squad? Not working. It looks like an army of demons. Not to mention it obfuscates the face of a person, which if you do believe in God, is a reflection of that divine image. I get the meme, laser focus, but can’t we find a better way to connote our conviction in bitcoin? Ethereum’s ultra sound money (bat + sonar) symbols are nice because they don’t change the face of the PFP. Bitcoiners could - gasp - emulate ethereum by finding emojis that connote a hard cap of 21 million, and add those to our profiles instead.

Regardless if Bitcoiners believe every type of coin or token that is not bitcoin to be a “$#it coin”, this is not helping bitcoin adoption. What it reads like is insular non-open mindedness. It doesn’t read high-conviction like it actually means. If bitcoiners can’t accept that Ethereum has provided a new worldwide settlement layer for over-collatoralized lending and borrowing, and a more robust smart contract for greater functionality, then just keep it to yourself man. Sotheby’s is selling Beeple’s art and the currency bids are a host of fiats, Yen, Pound, Dollars, and ETH.

Instead lets reposition any criticism of not bitcoin as an acknowledgement that blockchains like ethereum solve for different use cases that bitcoin does not want to. It’s not that bitcoin couldn’t solve for those issues but that it has purposefully ossified itself to do one thing really well, security, and nothing will stop that.

People are going to collect NFTs on Solana, Donald Trump launched his PFP project on Polygon, and L2s are surprassing L1 transactions on mainnet. Let’s stop calling the world that is growing up around us $#it coins. We look like a angry stubborn grandpas. Just say, “other blockchains have different use cases bitcoin is a store of wealth.”

Us bitcoiners that heard about this stuff in 2012 or earlier, and had the good head space to act on what we learned, are not gods, we’re just early-adopters. That’s it. Being right too early, and not having conviction in your truth, is tantamount to being wrong. Think of people that dumbed bitcoin under $100, or $1,000. I’ve heard podcasts of bitcoiners back-slapping each other for being so smart, and that they’re going to run the world. On some level as BTC becomes the most powerful store of value on the planet there will be commensurate energy to be allocated by holders. And, this is better than people running the world who print money and steal value from holders of it. Indeed, bitcoiners have proof-of-concept, proof-of-time, and proof-of-work. This is all well-deserved. Good job. But we’re not God, so wind down the narcissim.

This may fly in the face of a top 10 list on marketing but it is possibly the most clutch. This is a strong point made by a bitcoin maximalist named Alex Svetski. He goes pretty hard in the paint on bitcoin which respect. Svetski nailed the concept of The Remnant, that bitcoin is meant for those who find it and not everyone. This is a key marketing concept for adoption. By not wasting time trying to “convert” someone who isn’t ready to understand bitcoin, we’re allocating more intelligent attentions into domains where someone is. Know our audience. Bitcoin isn’t for everyone.

Be a part of the value for value network. Podcast apps like Fountain, let someone listen to their usual podcast (any cast with an RSS feed), earn Satoshis, and then send “spikes” of sats to the creators they enjoy. This attention economy, and other formulations like it around sports, film, or music, is certainly a major marketing opportunity for bitcoin. Be on the forefront of applications and systems that deliver these value-for-value platforms without compromising custody, and help improve the UX/UI. Let’s give our bitcoin to each other to show what we pay attention to.

Yes we know the Federal Reserve is neither “federal” nor has any “reserves”. Brilliant designer, engineer, and architect Buckminster Fuller once said:

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

We have the new model that could make central banks obsolete or at the very least less relevant. This sagely advice from Fuller illustrates the problem with going ham on corruption, coercion, and theft in the traditional banking system.

If we take the energy placed into expressing what was wrong with the previous system and redirect it like BTUs into the ability to expand and implement the “new model that makes the existing model obsolete” we’ll have an immediate duel effect: Look a lot less pissed off and have a remedy that people can focus on.

Not everyone needs the historical lesson on why banks are bad. However, those whom are ready for it will want to learn about how bitcoin can secure their property rights, and protect them against the inevitable onslaughts of an unpredictable tomorrow.

Frank America is an author, researcher, comedian, and musician. He is Co-founder of The Rug and a Content Manager at Bankless Publishing.