That was really pretty crazy. It is one of the craziest things I have ever done as a content creator. To make it happen I had to swap 115 ICP to get enough Bitcoin, because I couldn't do the giveaway with less than $1,000 worth of Bitcoin. And I really wanted this exact thumbnail: I gave a thousand people Bitcoin in 30 seconds. That is such an amazing thumbnail. It's an amazing video idea. This is what it looks like in OpenChat. When I check the updated version right now, 150 people have already claimed it.
I asked my wife beforehand about this idea, because I've had some big ideas as a content creator in the past, like when I changed my race three years ago. I didn't ask anybody about that one ahead of time, and the main thing I wished I'd done differently is to ask my friends and family before going through with a big idea, to get their read on whether I should do it. This one is a bit easier. It's purely generous. It's a great video idea, and it showcases the technology on ICP.
It still gave me quite an adrenaline rush, giving all this money away in real time, and I really like that. What I love about having more money is that I have more to give to others. To me this is such a great way to show off the technology behind ICP and behind OpenChat. I even have the ability to make a proposal to the OpenChat DAO if I want to, to say, hey, I gave away $1,000 in Bitcoin and promoted OpenChat heavily in the application, maybe you all could put in for some of it. I figure I'll let the video come out and let it get views first. Asking for a tip after you do some really good marketing is a way to get paid, instead of getting paid up front. I love doing something in my work that's fun and a little crazy, and this one hit perfectly. It's fun. It's a little bit insane, because I just dropped the amount of ICP in my account by over $1,000 to do it.
Why the giveaway had to be $1,000
Here's how I bought the Bitcoin. I took 100 and something liquid ICP, swapped it on ICPSwap, and gave that much away. If I could have gotten away with giving away $100, I absolutely would have. But for some reason, when you do a giveaway on OpenChat with ckBTC, it won't let you send a small amount. It says the minimum giveaway is 0.01 ckBTC. That's the only reason I gave so much away, because they require the minimum to be a certain size. It's funny: when I went to set up the giveaway, I imagined giving away $100 worth of Bitcoin so everyone gets 10 cents. Then when I saw it was going to be $1,000, I thought, Jesus, I'm not prepared to give $1,000 away right now. But it's cool.
My takeaway from life is that sometimes life gives you a big opportunity, but you might have to invest in that opportunity. You might have to put something out up front. This is one of those, and to me it's a guaranteed win, because I've given a thousand people in my community a dollar's worth of Bitcoin. There's no downside to that for me. Now, if you're FOMOing into some coin and making a person you don't know rich, that's different. Sometimes life presents opportunities to advance with joy and to help others. Other times what looks like an opportunity is really a way to sabotage yourself.
A yoga lesson about holding crypto too long
Before this, I went to yoga this morning and the class was pretty crowded, which was nice to see. At the same time, there was an attorney and her husband. She'd brought him to yoga, and they both had to leave at the beginning of class. They left a big open space in the room, and even though the class was full, nobody got up to fill it. It reminded me of crypto: you buy these coins and then you don't want to clear the space out for them. Buying a certain crypto is like putting your yoga mat down in a spot, and it can take an irrationally large effort to get up and move before it's your time.
I also talked to a guy about crypto in my AA meeting today, and I realized I need to make a crypto for absolute beginners video. He said, yeah, I'm going to put in less than $100, and he'd bought a couple of stablecoins. I told him, no, don't buy stablecoins. I don't even consider stablecoins to be real crypto. That's not what we want to buy. He said he'd bought a little Bitcoin and a couple of altcoins, and I said, all right, so you're buying stuff and you've never actually used the blockchain. That's what I'm hearing.
Buy the coin whose blockchain you actually use
I was thinking of the video I did with Kyle Langham from Dfinity. He pointed out that Warren Buffett says if you use a company's product, then you can consider buying the stock. What's crazy to me is how many people buy these cryptos but have never used the blockchain. If you're trading crypto on an exchange, you're not using the blockchain. You're going through a third party that often does not move your funds onto the chain at all. They put crypto into huge accounts, often pooling a thousand people's deposits into one address, because it's easier to keep one private key secure than a thousand. That's a simplified version of it. These exchanges put all your funds together, also because then they don't have to be transparent about where your funds are. They throw everybody's funds together and can do whatever they want in the middle.
That gave me another great idea. I came home, had a vegan hot dog and some hummus for lunch, Laura and I took some quality time together, and I had this sudden inspired idea. I got up and thought, I just had a video idea come out of nowhere. It's basically a Mr. Beast style title: I gave a thousand people Bitcoin in 30 seconds. That's how inspiration comes, by putting yourself in the right position, being joyful, and then, bam, the inspiration arrives.
Setting conditions and stacking what you use
I also set conditions on the giveaway. You have to be active in OpenChat for 14 days and you have to be a verified human. Yes, that excludes some people, but I also don't want to give $500 to a bot in OpenChat, and bots are a huge problem. OpenChat has some of the best tools in the world to easily run giveaways and minimize the number of bots that can claim them. So if you couldn't get this one, now you know what the conditions will be for future giveaways.
To me, the number one coin to buy is a coin whose blockchain you've actually used, where you're using the blockchain every day. This whole thing makes me want to buy more OpenChat, because I realized how much I use OpenChat relative to how much of it I hold. Maybe I want to stack up some more. The price is actually down against ICP even over the last 30 days, although it's up over the last seven. I have an ICP Insiders Mastermind, which I may rebrand, and I wish I'd bought more of this when Mike said it was the perfect time to buy, but I dragged my feet. Maybe I'll just ask the OpenChat DAO to give me some CHAT as a tip for this giveaway. If you want to go deeper on this technology, you can follow along with my ICP Crypto playlist.
I'm really grateful that I had fun doing this today, and I hope it inspires you to think outside the box in your own life. Renee said that if I ever become a millionaire, this giveaways channel is a great platform, because I can give any amount of money away in it. I look at it this way: once I have enough money, I would rather just give the rest away. I love that this giveaways channel lets me do exactly that. It's really cool.