100 Million Dollar investment into PPC

[Luckybit]

PPcoin needs a virtual stock exchange. With a virtual stock exchange we don’t need some random guy with 100 million to invest. We could invest ourselves.

[quote=“Excelsior”]A large financial guy was asking me about cryptos last night. He couldn’t stop asking questions. These guys fear what they don’t understand, but they also smell major opportunity here.

They can’t read code and are too crazy busy to read all the forum postings (or understand all the nuances of this ‘system’), so they stand on the sidelines and keep looking in.

But those sidelines are slowly gathering more and more of them. And they are all getting antsy. They know the value of getting in early.

I think it’s a matter of time, nothing more. There are a thousand Winklevosses out there whose friends are inviting them to the sidelines of our world. It’s an exciting topic for them.

Oh, in time, shots will be fired in these waxing masses along our periphery. Those who fire first with their mighty capital will likely accrue mighty spoils. You can’t deny virtual currencies their improvements over fiat, the retailers their desire for smaller transaction fees, the layman freedom from today’s banks and surely, the rising tide of this all.

Large investors will come. It’s only a matte of when they finally have asked enough questions to satiate the fears.[/quote]

Why do we want them here? We aren’t even invested ourselves but we want them to basically buy Bitcoin and PPcoin from under our noses? I’m all for promoting it to the big dawgs once we have a virtual stock exchange so that any of us can invest and buy stock but if you don’t even set it up so the community owns itself then you’re inviting some random millionaire who doesn’t care about any of this to come along and buy the community as it’s being built.

Find a way to let them buy in so that we can buy in along with them. Venture capitalist firms have us locked out at the gate, we can’t even buy shares in the IPOs because we aren’t part of the 1%. Why not buy shares in the IPOs in virtual stock exchanges then invite big investors to buy afterwards so that the community has early adopter/IPO advantage?

[ifeelthefuture]

[quote=“Excelsior”]A large financial guy was asking me about cryptos last night. He couldn’t stop asking questions. These guys fear what they don’t understand, but they also smell major opportunity here.

They can’t read code and are too crazy busy to read all the forum postings (or understand all the nuances of this ‘system’), so they stand on the sidelines and keep looking in.

But those sidelines are slowly gathering more and more of them. And they are all getting antsy. They know the value of getting in early.

I think it’s a matter of time, nothing more. There are a thousand Winklevosses out there whose friends are inviting them to the sidelines of our world. It’s an exciting topic for them.

Oh, in time, shots will be fired in these waxing masses along our periphery. Those who fire first with their mighty capital will likely accrue mighty spoils. You can’t deny virtual currencies their improvements over fiat, the retailers their desire for smaller transaction fees, the layman freedom from today’s banks and surely, the rising tide of this all.

Large investors will come. It’s only a matte of when they finally have asked enough questions to satiate the fears.[/quote]

I’ve been having a number of these conversations as well but it’s not a certainty in my mind that these guys will come in. Surely, cryptos will develop and eventually big money will get in but I have a specific interest in trying to find a way to get them into PPC. Their interest has been piqued by BTC and I’m sure a few are punting around in altcoins. What I’m looking for is a strategy that makes sense for a single investor that can move large amounts of money. A million here or there may be a big bet for some of these guys and may yield a small fortune if it all works out but it’s not likely that size like that will change the course of the market’s development. What can real capital do in crypto to develop the market and ensure a home run return?

Excelsior, do you have any ideas?

[whifmoi]

@ifeelthefuture

[quote=“whifmoi, post:18, topic:135”]I will answer myself. The persons without the rising coins will loose. They only have Dollars. The lost is very small (in the average), it’s negligible because of the huge amount of Dollars. Exactly the gain of the people that own the coins is the loss of people that own the Dollars.

Please read the article or other academic text on wealth creation and then we can continue.[/quote]
I have red the article. You are not academic, aren’t you?

Professional economics are destroying Europe at this time. Some comments to the article:

[ul][li]economics is not a precise science, so difficult to compare with physics or chemistry[/li]
[li]“any value ranging from zero to infinity is theoretically possible” No, infinit value is not possible[/li]
[li]“The point is that if one has $10,000 dollars worth of stock, that stock is actually worthless up until the point it is traded” No, the Dollars have an intrinsic or fair value, which perhaps cannot be determined at some time[/li][/ul]

I now come to the example with Alice, Bob, and Chris.

[ul][li]At the beginning: “Total wealth = $930” No, total wealth is $930 and 30 shares of Z[/li]
[li]At the end: “Thus, total wealth in the system is now $1020” No, total wealth is $930 and 30 shares of Z[/li][/ul]

$13 for one share is a commitment between the three, not necessarily the true value of the shares. One day later shares of Z can have the value of $0, not so good for Chris. And two days later $30, perhaps. But the wealth is always $930 and 30 shares of Z in total.

My wealth is nearly no Euro and no Dollars but a lot of cryptos.

The text is bs, excuse me.

[whifmoi]

Every investor is welcome, small or large. But they should not come with false expectations. It can fail at any time. I would not have invested if I had not trust in PPcoin. My personal estimation is that PPcoins are ten times in worth as now, and after the deletion of the check-points 100 times higher in worth than now.

As a large investor I would support the price as silent as possible, preferably while dropping.

[ifeelthefuture]

[quote=“Excelsior”]I actually think it is not a bad idea to approach a large investor. First of all, it will make all of our holdings much more valuable. Second of all, it will say to others, “someone really, REALLY believes in this coin”… and lend ppc some valuable credibility. Confidence in the coin will help others be excited to build infrastructure around it (which is needed for it to survive at least, and to prosper at any rate).

Getting mad at large investors or excluding them doesn’t do any good that I see. Besides, it’s an open marketplace - it’s theirs to buy in or not buy in - fair and square.

Now actively courting a very large one… why not? The argument for ppc’s merits is strong. I actually think you could succeed in convincing someone to invest. I think they would do very well.

Would it harm the little guy? How? They can’t “buy the community” in any way. They can only buy coins. They might actually help the community to a large degree by making the coins much more valuable (those holding already will become very, very motivated to make the coin become widely adopted on Main Street and to keep branching out in various ways like you see early Bitcoin holders actively doing today).

The only question… is could they hoard tons of the coins and do evil things because they have so many? I don’t have any red flags coming to mind.

Is this all hypothetical or do you actually have a person in mind?[/quote]

I could certainly get the right idea to the right people but I would want it to be a great idea first. I don’t think there’s any worry that someone like this would be seeking to buy up a big chunk and try to engineer an attack- that really is incredibly short term thinking and it destroys the value of any investment required to get there. So I only see upside for the community. I think the concerns some have about keeping ‘establishment’ players out are unfounded. The PPC world can be a small exclusive crypto club that doesn’t welcome outsiders and also won’t help you buy a sandwich down the street or it can be something that is liquid, well-known and valuable or it can be anything in between. Lastly, it can be dead, which is the scenario I worry about given all the competition and my investment in time, funds, and tears. I love this coin. I would love to see it hit the global stage.

So I want to try to plan out how a large investment would help it get there. Some of the elements I see as necessary/possible:

1. An initial investment into the currency that buys the investor a reasonable stake and also drives up the value considerably. Maybe 20-50x of where it is now.
2. A PR campaign that gets PPC into the nightly news. Bitcoin 2.0- better, stronger, greener. Let the next big news cycle focus on this. The recent price run-up gets the greed flowing which drives interest in news.
3. An easy, liquid exchange for people to take fiat into PPC without going through BTC.
4. APIs that any eCommerce site can use to show prices in PPC, accept PPC, convert PPC into fiat.
5. A wallet upgrade
6. A mobile wallet
7. An upgrade to Sunny’s official site or the creation of a new ‘official’ home
8. Media placement- PPC mentioned by thought leaders. A TED talk, etc.
9. Some kind of campaign to promote PPC to vendors and merchants.
10. A PPC bank.

All of the above could be done for less than 10mm. I look at that and even when I envision solid execution I can’t see that it would definitely work. What to do with the other 90mm? I wish there was some segment of the online world that one could invest in, leverage the investment to force acceptance of PPC thereby growing the market and the value of the investment. Porn is a great example of an industry that could benefit from PPC and vice-versa (see the other thread “Porncoin” on this) but it’s a non-starter for a big investor.

There’s still a big piece missing but I can’t see it yet…

[ifeelthefuture]

@whifmoi

[quote=“ifeelthefuture, post:19, topic:135”][quote=“whifmoi, post:18, topic:135”]I will answer myself. The persons without the rising coins will loose. They only have Dollars. The lost is very small (in the average), it’s negligible because of the huge amount of Dollars. Exactly the gain of the people that own the coins is the loss of people that own the Dollars.

Please read the article or other academic text on wealth creation and then we can continue.[/quote]
I have red the article. You are not academic, aren’t you?

Professional economics are destroying Europe at this time. Some comments to the article:

[ul][li]economics is not a precise science, so difficult to compare with physics or chemistry[/li]
[li]“any value ranging from zero to infinity is theoretically possible” No, infinit value is not possible[/li]
[li]“The point is that if one has $10,000 dollars worth of stock, that stock is actually worthless up until the point it is traded” No, the Dollars have an intrinsic or fair value, which perhaps cannot be determined at some time[/li][/ul]

I now come to the example with Alice, Bob, and Chris.

[ul][li]At the beginning: “Total wealth = $930” No, total wealth is $930 and 30 shares of Z[/li]
[li]At the end: “Thus, total wealth in the system is now $1020” No, total wealth is $930 and 30 shares of Z[/li][/ul]

$13 for one share is a commitment between the three, not necessarily the true value of the shares. One day later shares of Z can have the value of $0, not so good for Chris. And two days later $30, perhaps. But the wealth is always $930 and 30 shares of Z in total.

My wealth is nearly no Euro and no Dollars but a lot of cryptos.

The text is bs, excuse me.[/quote]

Whifmoi,

I appreciate that you read the article. I don’t see how you can disagree with the conclusions as I see this as disagreeing with basic arithmetic. However, you’ve made your view quite clear so let’s just say that we agree to disagree on this issue.

[ifeelthefuture]

Excelsior,

Unfortunately, I don’t have the kind of time required to really drive this. If I can come up with a clear vision and we see an interest from an investor or investors that want to fund some of this then I can help to project manage or guide some of it. At best, at least for the time being, PPC can only be a hobby.

Regarding retail, I agree your points. This is definitely doable. There are a lot of little companies that need to get set up to facilitate this growth. Hopefully, as momentum builds, we have entrepreneurs in the community that see an opportunity in each of these niches and start building a business. If we were to find a big investor that would be willing to fund a larger strategy then we could work with him/her to get qualified people in the community connected.

As far as a strong spokesperson for PPC goes I have mixed feelings on this. One of the problems of BTC, in my opinion, is the fact that Satoshi Nakamoto is a pseudonym and that he has no communication with the world. The ‘ghost’ nature of the inventor of BTC adds to the leeriness in the conventional world. The messaging of BTC has been delegated to others who seem all too fault-prone and often juvenile with their intentions. It doesn’t build trust.

I think having a strong and visible figure out in front is a real double edged sword in that it invites scrutiny and attack from a sensationalist media that could distract from the message.

I think Sunny has walked the line perfectly so far. He’s been principled in his messaging, consistent in his communications, and proven his technical capability to a point that inspires confidence. He’s also stayed above the fray and away from any petty bickering. I think he should keep his profile low and keep his focus on the fundamentals as he appears to have been doing.

So if there is a spokesman I don’t think it should be him. As the father of PPC, if he gets torn down, the coin will fall with him. On the other hand, if we found a more public face and that person somehow failed, he/she could always be replaced. All that said, I’m not 100% convinced that we need a public face except to protect Sunny from the media’s glare. Perhaps it can be done without a spokesperson- I would be interested in what PR experts think about this.

Let’s keep thinking on the strategy. I don’t know what it is yet but my intuition tells me the missing piece is something that hasn’t been done before. We can envision a lot of development with some conventional tactics as I’ve laid out but the magic is going to be something way way out of the box.

[Luckybit]

[quote=“Excelsior”]I actually think it is not a bad idea to approach a large investor. First of all, it will make all of our holdings much more valuable. Second of all, it will say to others, “someone really, REALLY believes in this coin”… and lend ppc some valuable credibility. Confidence in the coin will help others be excited to build infrastructure around it (which is needed for it to survive at least, and to prosper at any rate).

Getting mad at large investors or excluding them doesn’t do any good that I see. Besides, it’s an open marketplace - it’s theirs to buy in or not buy in - fair and square.

Now actively courting a very large one… why not? The argument for ppc’s merits is strong. I actually think you could succeed in convincing someone to invest. I think they would do very well.

Would it harm the little guy? How? They can’t “buy the community” in any way. They can only buy coins. They might actually help the community to a large degree by making the coins much more valuable (those holding already will become very, very motivated to make the coin become widely adopted on Main Street and to keep branching out in various ways like you see early Bitcoin holders actively doing today).

The only question… is could they hoard tons of the coins and do evil things because they have so many? I don’t have any red flags coming to mind.

Is this all hypothetical or do you actually have a person in mind?[/quote]

I’m not saying we should exclude them. I’m saying let’s actually get some micropayment system set up so that everything we do is monetized and then entice the big investors. This way it’s not just our PPcoin holdings which will gain in value, but our shares, and our micropayment profits for our blogs, websites, or even forums like this. The point is everything should be earning PPcoins in some way and the fact that this forum itself has not figured out how to capitalize and monetize with micropayments shows me the infrastructure isn’t ready for the big investors.

And I don’t think we need big investors to build basic infrastructure like a micropayment system but I do understand if could happen a bit faster if we had someone to invest in infrastructure. The point here is how do we get the investments in infrastructure without losing control of the infrastructure and the community along with it? If institutional ESTABLISHMENT investors invest in a way where we are locked out then how is that good? We’d be locked out by the ESTABLISHMENT investors who will own all the critical infrastructure which would give them a bit too much power over the fate of this coin.

[Luckybit]

[quote=“MeBeingAwesome”]I’ve been thinking about PPC’s branding strategy for a little while now under the framework of a few different branding models.

These three http://i.imgur.com/KNjDaeQ.png brand management models are linked, interlocked models that some marketing professionals use for evaluating the strength of a brand. The first two steps are especially interesting for this stage of development.

Step 1 refers to common marketing terms of “points of parity”, or features that are similar to competing products. They are often used to establish credibility in an existing segment for an unknown brand, or to lessen any perceived weaknesses. PPC is moderately strong here. Dedicated cryptocurrency fans will understand that PPC uses the same SHA-256 encryption methods as Bitcoin (BTC) (the category leader), that it has a proof-of-work (PoW) component to its design, and that the coin was developed out of the revolutionary structural code of BTC.

However, much of what I read on the forums is more focused on PPC’s “points of difference”. Factors like better scalability and lower potential future energy usage. This is important, because if we’re looking at the next big jump in adoption, we should be creating a dual focus in the messaging on both “points of parity” and “points of difference”, and not “points of difference” alone. Points of difference are interesting once you’ve figured out that cryptocurrency is not a pyramid scheme or a some arbitrarily revocable online item. Points of parity are what will begin to attract those people who are just starting to research online about Bitcoin and might not trust lesser known brands like PPC. We need to continually compare ourselves to BTC on the factors that people find important (encryption security, ease of use, and availability), while adding the “points of difference” immediately after.

Step 2 is one of my favorite business models. Any major brand can be analyzed on each individual portion of the model. It’s quite common to find that iconic brands (Apple, Harley Davidson, Coca-Cola) have built up this pyramid to the very top level of Resonance. At this level, people actively trade brand stories with one another (“I remember when I was 5 and my dad would buy me a Coke after soccer”), manage dedicated fan communities, and may even derive some form of intrinsic benefit just from merely associating themselves with the brand.

Judgement and Performance are very tightly linked as rational valuations of a brand, just as Feelings and Imagery are more of a gut-feel. PPC is currently fighting for Salience, or basic awareness. Focusing on Performance (superior PoS concept for example) before increasing the number of people who know about the brand is counter-intuitive.

Thus, I’d recommend that the next stage of the strategy needs to incorporate wider advertising in non-traditional channels. This includes updating the Facebook page, updating ppcoin.org, and then beginning to post about PPC in forums other than ppcointalk.org or bitcointalk.org. There is a wonderful variety of Performance data on our forums, and the Imagery portion is slowly being built through the efforts of people like Sentinelrv in this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=227647.0. However, the brand needs to generate a basic level of Salience through increased user effort before those steps of the model will begin to take hold with potential investors.[/quote]

This is why we need to monetize. We need to find a way to monetize content so podcasters, forums, bloggers, etc can properly hype PPcoin and make money. I would set up a site myself if there were a way for me to earn PPcoins hosting it for example.

[Luckybit]

[quote=“MeBeingAwesome”]I’ve been thinking about PPC’s branding strategy for a little while now under the framework of a few different branding models.

These three http://i.imgur.com/KNjDaeQ.png brand[/quote]

My opinion is we should start monetizing everything. The main thing way we need to put a price on everything is with microtransactions. By monetizing everything I mean we can instead of just relying on ads to pay website owners via pay per click, we need the infrastructure so website owners can charge fees per click. These fees would pay for the operation of the site.

For example if every account we made on this forum were to cost some portion of PPcoin then the site would make some money from that. If features all cost in PPcoin then the site could make money on that as well. If posts cost in PPcoin then we’d have less crap posts and the site would make money on that. At some point there would have to be a Nash equilibrium. So I cannot tell you exactly how many fees any particular site would need or how much the audience would tolerate but once the equilibrium is found then that would be the sweet spot for the site to operate and be profitable.

When sites operate and become profitable it creates jobs for everyone, it pays site owners and potentially users. Micropayments are the solution to the problem we see on the web now where running a website or forum just isn’t profitable anymore. If we are going to start somewhere, why not start by creating a better more monetized web (why not start with this forum?).

If we need a big investor involved we need that investor to pay for a cross platform micropayment infrastructure but honestly we need business plans and business models first.

Micropayments are already on the way with Payswarm so the only thing you’d gain would be it might happen slightly faster with increased investment. Payswarm will support cryptocurrencies when it’s completed but until then we will not have much monetization. I think we should start planning now how to adapt to a fully monetized web based around micropayments because that is what we will have in a year or two. The problem with Payswarm though is that it also support everything else. It supports credit card too and it’s not exclusive to cryptocurrencies.
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/04/web-payments-with-payswarm-identity-part-1-of-3/

About porn, if we look at sites like Suicidegirls or Godsgirls neither of these sites accept Bitcoin. Mygirlfund does accept Bitcoin. To market PPcoin we’d have to make it easy for these sites to accept cryptocoins and then nag these sites into accepting them. One way to market it would be to tell them you’ll be giving business to their competition which does accept Bitcoins. And for the sites which accept Bitcoins you can say you’ll be giving business to their competitor which accepts PPcoins.

But if they don’t accept cryptocoins in general then you should boycott those sites until they come around. If they figure out people don’t want to pay with credit cards anymore eventually they’ll make the switch, and also when they figure out they can do micropayments and it’s better for everyone then they’ll have to make a switch because people aren’t going to pay $5 a month to suicidegirls and have that go on their bank statement when they can go to a clone of suicidegirls and pay with Bitcoin and possibly not have to pay a membership fee at all due to micropayments.