Hello friends,
We’re excited to be back after taking a pause yesterday. We took the time to advance projects we’re particularly excited about and that will be coming your way soon (*ahem… website*). While we’re at it, are you excited about @BitsTODAY and want to get involved? We’re looking for stellar writers, contributions, and of course, #hottips in our Discord channel. Get in touch with @nvo if you’re interested in writing with us. He doesn’t bite, we promise.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming. Shall we jump in?🐋
Guest cover design by @waved'
Bits on the menu today:
1. BuzzClout: Exclusive look at today’s movers and shakers presented by @bitcloutsignal
2. Ubiquitous UX Deep Drops: You Get a 💎, and YOU get a 💎
3. Clout Controversy: Evaluating the meteoric rise of @Designsta
4. Up & Coming Creators: You know the drill
5. General Absurdity: Things get kinky
Diamondhands’ drops 💎
#1 BuzzClout
First things first. In partnership with @bitcloutsignal, here’s an exclusive look at today’s top 5 rug pulls:
#2 Ubiquitous UX deep drops: You get a 💎, and YOU get a 💎
It looks like the BitClout core dev team is once again reloading their arsenal after they hit us with a blast of 💎💎💎 on Monday. While we wait for the next volley of UX cannon fire, here’s some high-impact data on the diamond tipping feature roll-out so far, courtesy of @ludo.
If we round for approximation purposes and call this roughly ~$100k of tips in 48 hours, that’s an annualized run-rate of more than $30M in financial transactions via the diamond feature. And that assumes no incremental transaction / DAU or baseline DAU growth. In short? There’s a clear path to 9 figures of fiat changing hands in BitClout ‘tips’ in 2021.
#3 Clout Controversy: Evaluating the meteoric rise of @Designsta
In the hottest gossip to hit the BitClout blocks today, a new account, @BitDetective, has hit the scene and is immediately going after some of the biggest movers and shakers on the platform. Their first target? @Designsta, whom they claim is a pump & dump scheme nearing a climactic rug-pull. (🤯)
@Designsta’s meteoric rise has certainly garnered plenty of attention, though from what we’ve seen, it’s largely been positive. It’s one of the biggest creator moves in BitClout history, especially outside of genesis accounts. And it’s the biggest for a (pair of) active female creators (i.e. not inactive @arianagrande’s). As of this writing, @Designsta’s coin price is hovering around $13k, with a market capitalization north of $2M. And to be clear, @Designsta has publicly denied @BitDetective’s accusations, calling it misinformation.
So how has this sister duo hacked their growth on BitClout this successfully? And are there any yellow flags that could give credence to @BitDetective’s claim? We did what any good journalists would do: We started digging in. We also reached out to @Designsta for an interview; unfortunately we haven’t been able to secure a face to face chat or voice call yet.
For now, here are a few things we know to be true, as well derivative questions that stem from these facts:
The @Designsta team must be flush with cash or outside support. They hold an usually high amount of their own coin. At current? Their stake in themselves in nearly ~65 coins, valued almost ~$900k.
By our calculations and research, they’ve invested close to $200k in their own coin. This is an impressive amount of cash to deploy for anyone, let alone for two founders who are also bootstrapping a business.
There is one anonymous account that seems to help fund the design sisters with BitClout. This account has had 86 transactions with and (i) sent BitClout to the @Designsta account when it was first created (ii) sent more BitClout to the account yesterday during a dip in the @Designsta creator coin price (iii) has 42 transactions with @btcpepe, which is also the top @Designsta coin holder besides the account itself, as well as other investors that hold the coin.
@Designsta has gifted significant sums of their own coin to top BitClout team members, including @Maebeam and @Diamondhands, as well as BitClout celebs like @Craig.
While this is a widespread practice to hack growth, investors should be careful to distinguish gifted coins from actual investments as far as legitimizing a creator coin is concerned.
One thing we did find a bit odd? @Designsta has also made no mention off-platform of their newfound success on BitClout. If we built a $2M brand in a matter of weeks, we’d probably be talking it up a bit on Twitter, Facebook and IG. At the bare minimum as another marketing tactic.
Of course, none of the above is specifically criminal, or even extra out of the ordinary for BitClout. Many big accounts on the platform operate the way @Designsta does at current, e.g. stating specific targets, playing with FR %, advertising buybacks. For now, the bigger story in our eyes (until we can dig into this further at least) is that much in the same way critics like Mark Cuban criticize BitClout for being a community that only talks about itself, we can’t fully discern what the substance behind the growth hacking component of the @Designsta project is (and countless other projects will be).
With a creator price that is now well above @BitSwap’s (which we use here as an example of a highly value-accretive project on BitClout) we have to ask, what’s the bigger value proposition for @Designsta? The @Designsta team did address this question to an extent in a longer-form post earlier today — you can read the full post here.
And on the off-chance this is a massive pump and dump campaign? It would be absolutely devastating for the platform. With many BitClout natives eager to see female creators who aren’t already well credentialed on other platforms succeed here, having the first major success story turn out to be a fraud would be damning.
We’d love to directly with you @Designsta to hear your perspective and set the record straight. Let’s hope on a call or jump into a zoom meeting. Sound good?
#4 Up and comers
WEDNESDAY. You know the drill . This is one of our favorite times of the week where we uncover and explore amazing creators on the platform. Once we get past the initial BitClout hype 🚂, creators actually creating novel content in novel ways is what will make this community to soar. Our small piece in this process is highlighting and providing an initial platform for some of these stand-out creators. Here’s a couple for this week:
@dvoroneca: A phenomenal female creator, artist, designer, and a true cryptogenius. She has mastered the art of futuristic graphic design as well as NFT minting. However, the coolest thing about her is that she is a crypto exchange veteran. In 2017, she worked on Apollo, an app tailored specifically for Bitcoin exchange. On BitClout, @dvoroneca created @wtswtb, the platform that allows users to exchange USDT for BTCLT and vice-versa. No scammers and no discord. Watch out, @bitswap, you got some young and hungry competition! (written and curated by the amazing @alinaferry)
@OneRobot: There’s no shortage of Gen Zers who are crushing it on BitClout, and in crypto in general. In @OneRobot we find another example; this 20-year old visual artist has been sharing some stunning conceptual artwork on the platform. We’d love to see you dropping more dimes on BitClout, @OneRobot. Got anything special coming soon? 👀 (thanks to @MotionGraphicsCollective for the intro)
@FancyPantsNFT: While we’re all super bullish on digital art and wearables, with the 3D world opening up, we recognize we might need to swap our gym shorts and sweats for a real pair of pants again sometime soon (even if only to go to physical BitClout meet-ups). Luckily, @FancyPantsNFT is working on a cool digital / physical crossover that might come in handy here. In parallel to releasing Fancy Pants as NFTs on BitClout? @SusanJeanArt creates real merch you can rock IRL (store here). In fact, @SusanJeanArt has been busy, whipping up a number of other NFT collections, too. (thanks @ScottCo for bringing this hot fashion trend to our attention)
#5 General Absurdity (*NSFW*): Things get kinky
(Editors note: I’m going to be real with you, It’s about to get weird again. Like fr fr.)
Things have been getting a bit more … kinky around these parts. How so? To the tune of our Editor-in-chief receiving unsolicited sex advice from @Kamasutra, which focuses on exploring and recommending novel sex positions (though we have yet to see it discuss broader topics like emotional fulfillment, as its namesake ancient text, does).
Of course, as a proud father of two lovely children, we think @ASG has things under control in this department. If you’re looking to spice up your off-platform romance though (spending too much time sending diamonds to @Maebeam?), well, then maybe you can get @Kamasutra to spend some more time with you.
(Editor’s note: …Gawd i’m glad that’s over.)
Thanks for joining us for another round around the BitClout clout-iverse today, fam! We’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback, especially as it pertains to mounting controversy whether it with respect to specific accounts, slowdowns in DAUs, new features, what have you. Our DMs and our Discord are always open. Happy clouting :)
Ta-ta for now,
@BitsTODAY