Quote from: tonych on February 18, 2018, 06:30:48 PM

As I said before, airdrops to holders of BTC and Bytes, which we did on full moons, were a good way to bootstrap the network and get initial attention. But last few airdrops failed to attract any significant number of new users while quickly consuming the undistributed pool. We had to pivot to other distribution methods, but at the time I was writing the above post they were not ready yet, and I had to tentatively put another old-style airdrop on the calendar.

Now that the new distribution methods are ready and proven, and we've added even more methods than originally planned, the March airdrop is cancelled. November airdrop was the last one that paid to holders in proportion to their balances.

This is the list of the current distribution methods (in no particular order) that we'll continue to use and improve:

1. Cashback.

2. Verification rewards and referral rewards to those who verify their real name. It is true that the referral system didn't work quite well for new users who have no Bytes yet, and we are going to introduce a new scheme which will allow to refer new users without sending them any Bytes.

3. Giveaways, such as those that Rafael does to his youtube subscribers.

4. Mass sending of textcoins to subscribers of our partners. We have done two so far https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1heT6TUSpTJgRW-FUM0LbcoVjXZRCb3PbXQQLmzvNRvM/edit#gid=323859176 and will work on improving conversion in the future campaigns.

Other similar methods will be added over time, the purpose is to use the remaining undistributed coins most efficiently to acquire as many new users as possible.

There were multiple suggestions to redirect a part of undistributed funds from free distribution, i.e. from acquiring users, and spend it for hiring more people, paying contractors, etc. While I understand the reasoning behind these suggestions, it is also important that we learn to spend money wisely, with the maximum effect per spent $, before (and if) we scale up the budget. Anyway, it is unnecessary to repurpose the undistributed funds now as we have enough funds in the Community Fund to fund the current operations in the near future: it is over $1m in Bytes (plus another $1m in less liquid blackbytes).

When I went and checked and saw the price drop of Byteball I knew you had cancelled the March airdrop.

I don't see why the airdrops could not have continued at a reduced level or extended interval as part of the distribution method. If nothing else, it gives people a reason to look into Byteball and is easy to understand. I realize you always said the March airdrop may not happen, and can see moving away from rewarding BTC holders, but it would be interesting to see some data on how many new users these methods have attracted (sorry if it's somewhere I missed) versus the airdrop participation.

Good Luck.