The Stealth Criteria Marketing approach to Initial Token Distribution
A problem in determining who should be initial stakeholders in a project is challenging to solve. Some of the consequences for not getting it right could be pump and dumps, market manipulation, FUD, etc. On the other hand if the initial stakeholders are carefully selected then as the project grows the people who believe in the project will be in a position to guide it to success.
Most approaches involve mining (which typically leads to centralization over time due to market forces), sharedropping (which can self select stakeholders based on whether or not they subscribe to the overall concept), but the new undercover approach is more specific. The undercover marketing approach involves carefully selecting the stakeholders based on specific magic criteria. The demographic selection is based on magic criteria unknown to the population in advance.
Magic criteria could be character attributes, or any unannounced selection attributes, such as understanding of technology, ideals, reputation, or could even be comical such as wearing a certain color hat on Wednesday or being at the right place at the right time. This criteria could be kept secret or announced after the selection process is over or it could simply never be revealed. What is important is that there is clear evidence that the initial stakeholders all meet the same magic criteria.
Buzz agents
In this approach an undercover recruiter/issuer would scan the scene for individuals who meet the specific magic criteria required of an initial stakeholder. All who meet the criteria would then have to be approached individually, separately, and offered a stake. This offer could be protected by non-disclosure agreement or not.
These initial stakeholders would then be assigned the role of bringing in others like themselves. They would become undercover recruiters/issuers who would find at least two other persons who are similar in criteria to themselves. At the end of this process this would make up the initial undercover marketing team and shares would be distributed.
The unique twist
To put a unique twist to this marketing, the rules could be set that each individual buzz agent must come up with their own variation by adding an unknown criteria to the minimum criteria, or by taking something away. So that there is difficulty for the outside observer to determine what the initial criteria is.
References
Kirby, J. (2012). Viral marketing. Connected marketing, 87-106.
@dana-edwards My question is how this is any different from so called multi-level marketing or MLM? I'm not talking about a ponzi here. But bring a friend programs have been around for a long time.
Also this sounds a heck of a lot like nepotism, just sayin. Humans really suck at evaluating other humans from an objective standpoint. So everything that was selected would trend towards subjective criteria. In fact our current curation system kinda works this way.
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Have you heard of attribute based encryption and curiosume? Humans might not have to do the evaluation. You can lock it up so access requires certain attributes.
It's not exactly MLM. It's more an exclusive club which selects certain people based on some criteria to be leaders in that club. Leadership would be based on being initial token holders with the right to select the next generation. So it's more like a fraternity mixed with a blockchain utilizing an ITD with marketing elements.
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I feel that the initial stake holders should be adding something to the company or the cryptocurrency project. Initial entry should be on an invite only basis where the people who are in the beginning stages have a contribution that will increase the equity of the project as a whole.
I always feel that it would be best if many of the early arrivals to a project were software developers. If it a coin we are talking about, then people with a decent amount of mining power could be included as well.
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But they don't have to be software developers. The criteria could be people who are socially connected but who have no ability to write code. There is no shortage of software developers for some projects, and as far as mining goes, not every coin has to be mined. And not every project has to be a coin.
So the target demographic could literally be anything you think up, and the criteria could be anything you think up.
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