021. Shine on you crazy diamond.
Today’s edition cover design was provided courtesy of @blxckcherry
In the immortal words of Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler) in Uncut Gems, “Holy shit I’m gonna cum.” That’s at least how we imagine much of BitClout felt welcoming in the ‘diamond-ing’ feature to the platform today (5 💎s for anyone who helps us coin a better verb here.) Turns out, tying monetization to ‘likes’ on a social media platform is a powerful dopamine rush. Who would have guessed?
Let’s take a deep dive into the diamond mines of BitClout today, shall we?
Guest cover design by@blxckcherry'
Bits on the menu today:
1. BuzzClout: Exclusive look at today’s movers and shakers presented by @bitcloutsignal
2. UX Deep Dive: Diamonds are a Clouters’ Best Friend
3. NEW WHALE ALERT: Logan Paul enters the splash zone
4. General Absurdity: BitClout FC and BitClout NYC
5. Bonus @BitsTODAY: Listen to @ASG ramble for hours'
Diamondhands’ dropssssssss 💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎
#1 BuzzClout
First things first. In partnership with @bitcloutsignal, here’s an exclusive look at today’s movers and shakers:
#2 UX Deep Drops: 💎💎💎 are a Clouter’s best friend
And on the 8th day… diamonds reigned down from on high. After taking the weekend off from public releases, @Maebeam, @Diamondhands and crew were back with a HUGE, shiny drop today. What’d they have in store for us? A truckload of VVS. Let’s take an extended deep dive into this new functionality and all the spirited, sparkly engagement it earthed up:
As with other new functionality that’s been rolled out in the past month, the new ‘diamond’ engagement feature whereby creators can send one another slivers of their creator coin provides us clouters with a much wider range of motion in terms of how they interact with each other on the platform. In a ‘cloutstorm’ in which he covered a lot more ground, @JakeUdell summed up one key use case up succinctly for us:
Unlike other more straightforward past drops however (like reclouting), the new diamond feature instantly bred confusion, too.
At first, with wallet load times still slow in many corners of the clout-iverse, many creators wondered where the value attached to diamonds was coming from and ending up (your creator coin stache / the recipient’s wallet). Once that was solved, there was deeper disambiguation needed on other technical questions, too:
While we think it’s unlikely your diamonds disappear if you delete a post (it’s more of a ‘hide’ function; the blockchain, like diamonds, is forever folks), there’s clearly a lot for the many sleuths of BitClout to sort out here still. Bigger picture, we also wonder whether a large portion of the engagement on BitClout will eventually be tied to creator coins and monetization:
@Maebeam for one isn’t shying away from her prediction that diamonds may quickly render ‘likes’ on BitClout obsolete. With a default price denomination of $0.01 (you can send up to $836 with a 6 diamond), one wonders whether she’s right and likes will become little more than a lowly form of social interaction.
@ludo for one thinks there’s still a role for likes, as he broke down in an elegantly simple map of the different engagement options available to clouters:
It’s important to remember that each new interaction option released by the BitClout team is likely highly deliberate. As @nigeleccles pointed out in our Clubhouse last night (you can catch up HERE), Instagram never introduced ‘re-gramming’ even as users clamored for it in the earlier days of the platform’s development. Similarly, platforms like Twitter haven’t introduced anything comparable to diamonds or tipping despite the fact that users have been asking for it loudly for years.
The BC team clearly thinks diamonds will help build a stronger, more vibrant community, as that’s what’s paramount for BitClout’s growth. And while there was lots of general applause and ooh’s and ah’s accompanying the release of diamonds (and the snazzy confetti that accompanies each diamond you send someone else), we asked @BitsTODAY followers for additional takes and analysis. Below are a few of our fav’s we would like to highlight:
There’s little that’s cooler than receiving diamonds from you favorite creators right now. But getting hot, well-informed takes from a pair of good boys in your comments comes close (thanks @lepahc and @doodles… you’re alright too, @CloutCobain).
Last but not least on the diamonds front, can you spare a penny to help build a billion dollar company? C’mon, the right answer is yes. Make sure to drop the team @BitSwap a few diamonds to convince them to keep building (college can wait, boys).
#3 New whale alert
(*Sirens blare and sailors sharpen their harpoons*) Folks, we bring you an urgent whale alert courtesy of @cloutsigma (and tip courtesy of @shubhang). Along with claiming his account and minting his first post, @LoganPaul has started moving size into BitClout, perhaps preparing for what we hypothesized might be coming soon in last night’s edition, namely an active presence on the platform in advance of his headline-grabbing fight with Floyd Mayweather.
Creators, prep your plankton cannons — here’s to hoping this 🐳🐳🐳 is hungry.
#4 General Absurdity: BitClout FC and BitClout NYC
Was the whirlwind of activity surrounding the release of diamonds not enough absurdity for you today? Well, let us throw two massive OOH ad placements into the mix. Owner of Israel’s largest football club, FC Beitar of Jerusalem (and a leading candidate for GM of all things BitClout at that) @moshehogeg kicked things off by showing us the jerseys featuring BitClout ads that his club sported in their latest match.
While FC Beitar of Jerusalem were dealt a 3–1 loss in today’s game, we’re chalking this up as a resounding W for BitClout. Maybe we need a rebrand to FC “BitClout” Jerusalem. What do you think, @moshehogeg?
Furter, following up on a story we first covered last week, we’re also excited to report that @MOGULMOGUL delivered on their promise to take out major ad space in Times Square. Today, we saw a splashy, dynamic ad reel go live at 48th and 7th that included BitClout branding as well as the account handles for @MOGULMOGUL’s top 5 creator coin investors.
Increasingly, our main gripe with the pure “It’s a scam” take about BC is that it ignores the extent to which some BitClout users are willing to champion their love and stick their necks out for the platform. There’s few companies or platforms whose customers are willingly taking out some of the hottest ad space available globally to evangelize for them. Whether this is just part of the honeymoon phase or whether it proves sticky, well, that’s up to you all to decide!
#5 Bonus @BitsTODAY: Listen to @ASG ramble for hours
Done reading this issue (and every other issue we’ve released) and still hungry for more? Today’s your lucky day (and not just because you’ve gotten more diamonds than your entire family tree did before you). Our podcasts (aka ever-so-slightly-edited versions of our weekly Clubhouse sessions) are officially live on Spotify. Check out last night’s conversation featuring @alinaferry and @nigeleccles at the helm with a vocal @olmstead as our premier guest HERE.
Wondering how to get your voice into one of these @BitsTODAY sessions? Join us on Sunday nights (10pm PST, though we may adjust); we’re happy to hand the mic to you. 🎤🎤🎤
That’s all for tonight, folks. Don’t go too crazy on those diamonds. For one, you might bankrupt yourself, like @ASG (he’s committed to no longer use the “like” button, Diamonds only). @elonmusk hasn’t perfected asteroid mining yet either, so there’s a finite supply of these bad boys to go around. We’re kidding — we’ll gladly accept diamonds from all of you straight into our @BitsTODAY veins… er… we mean wallet. No paper hands here!
Adieu,
The @BitsTODAY team