Quote from: ASIC-8Tile on October 28, 2013, 07:00:25 PM

Hi all,

I agree that a PR firm that has measurable results (S.M.A.R.T) will be important in the near future.

However, the most important steps in the next few months are delivering features and value-added functionality to MSC so that word-of-mouth spreads within the Bitcoin community. I would first leverage the Project's success to market itself and then spend some money on PR.

Quote from: dacoinminster on October 28, 2013, 04:34:47 PM

There will never be more MasterCoins, unless the MasterCoin protocol gets hard-forked. Potentially anybody could do such a hard fork, and if it happened, people would have to decide if they wanted to stay or to join the new fork.

So far the price of BTC has risen faster than we can spend it, so we actually have a lot more money now than when we started, even though we've spent quite a bit. Of course, that could always change if BTC crashes, as it has been known to do. Because of that possibility, I'm a tightwad on a lot of things. Just ask the board - we're currently discussing whether we should hire a very prestigious PR firm who is offering us a discount and offering to take payment in BTC/MSC because they are hugely into what we are doing. However, it's still a LOT of money, and I'm looking at cheaper alternatives before we commit.

I agree. If it's the first decentralized exchange I don't think PR will be a problem at all. Get in contact with the issuers and business owners. Have some useful goods and services using the Mastercoin protocol and then run the PR campaign to put it into the media.

It will be important to encourage business owners and issuers to keep using Mastercoins but the truth of the matter is, for any business it will make all the sense in the world based on functionality. For the users I think where else are they supposed to go for a decentralized exchange? There is no alternative so once you have that you'll automatically have the Bitcoin community.

Even if Colored Coin and Bitshares arrive soon or at the same time the demand for a decentralized exchange is so great that there are thousands of people waiting just for that. The more features you have the greater the demand will be and I do believe the potential market cap is big enough for Colored Coin, Bitshares and Mastercoin to all be successful.

Long term PR will be a major issue though. The other issue will be getting fiat currency into the Mastercoin eco-system. Mastercoin is a great idea but if its hard to get fiat into the system it's never going to take off as much as it could. I have ideas on how giftcards can be used to turn fiat into Mastercoins using a giftcard/scratch card approach to selling Mastercoins. I think scratch cards which contain Mastercoins should be sold in liquor stores, coffee shops and at college campuses across the globe.

My idea for marketing Mastercoin to the general public once the functionality exists
I would design the scratch cards so everyone wins something, but the amount of Mastercoins you win is random. Some people would win the jackpot and some would win just enough to want to keep buying Mastercoin scratch tickets.

So just as the giveaway thread gives away Mastercoins at 0.1-0.9, in the future a scratch ticket approach will be necessary. The scratch tickets will be sold so people will actually be buying the Mastercoins but once in a while there will be a jackpot in there so that some people win a lot more than others.

So for $1 to $5 to $20 anyone will be able to buy a scratch ticket. They'll scratch it off to see how many Mastercoins they've won underneath. If they won more than they paid for they hit the jackpot but the majority of people will just win any amount and be happy with that. The total amount sold is the same but the distribution is randomized so that it's got a gambling element to it.

Now you'll have the general public with scratch tickets with Mastercoins which they'll be able to use.