CryptoTown Day 42 - Sup Doge? This past year..

Reddit can be a very isolating place, even on such a fun sub as /r/Dogecoin. There was a lot of excitement this time last year and a lot of confusion. I tried my best to get through to the Doge community with some advice and organizational support, but was lost in the noise. So much has happened, we need to catch up!

I have been super busy. I forgot about all politics and started at work to find out how can crypto make it into every day life. If blockchain tech can remove the need for a third party, such as a central bank, what else can it do for society? CryptoTown was born. I havn't even had time since last Summer to check in on my usual coin communities, or even currencies at all.

The cryptosphere may have taken a beating, this last year, but we still have our networks. The ratio of people who really care about the future of blockchain tech to those in it to make a quick bark should be more favorable. I was always most impressed with Doge community, coming straight outta the cracks of the internet with a positive and inclusive attitude to stick it all together.

dogecoin.com ~ The fun and friendly internet currency. Dogecoin sets itself apart from other digital currencies with an amazing, vibrant community made up of friendly folks just like you.

image ibtimes.co.uk

I want to clarify that I am looking for participation and cooperation from the Dogecoin community towards the actual adoption of crypto in society. I have grabbed a number of old posts that I made, and mixed them in with some posts about the foundation and moolah scandal for context. What have we been up to for the last year? Please discuss at the Reddit post.

Our bright future - Please help! - Understanding Crypto-Currency Market Dynamics and the Role of BTC, DOGE, and CGB (xpost /r/CryptoMarkets) (Feb 17, 2014)

Dogecoin TL;DR: The value of your currency is derived from the size of the community that trades and accepts Dogecoin. You must work tirelessly to spread the word and get people excited to be using Dogecoin and to accept it at their businesses. When businesses and individuals can operate by spending their earned Dogecoin instead of converting it to government issued fiat, you will have established lunar orbit. To say this another way, your ultimate goal is to create a diverse Dogecoin ecosystem that no longer relies on government issued fiat.

I think this is one of the most important objectives that I tried to convey. If a business can spend doge they earn on operational costs, there is less downward pressure on the price because it is not sold on exchange and accumulates.

Entrenched Interests, Lost Direction, and Stagnation in the Crypto-Currency Markets (xpost from /r/CryptoMarkets) - Doge mentioned. Very intrigue, much scandal. (Feb 27, 2014)

When I step back and look at what we are doing as a whole, I think that we could hardly be more directionless. Every day new coins are coming out which offer nothing new. Technologies have advanced but they are not even implemented in this constant stream of supposed excitement. [...] I am going to put this entire article into perspective and hopefully you will all begin to understand what kind of challenge we face. There is a great general force which causes the stagnation we see in crypto-markets today and it is people and organizations with time and money invested into their own currencies. This includes everyone from small time investor to enterprise grade coin mining datacenters to governments and banks. This includes unregulated digital currencies and includes government issued fiat currencies like the USD and the deep state that goes along with it. If citizens had the freedom to choose their own currency and it caused a flight out of government issued fiat to the new distributed economy, it would be a disaster to the status quo.

Looking back, if this insanity was not partially induced, its a testament to the power of greed. If we look at the long term chart, and consider that we used to see 1000 active shibes on the sub at a time, it really feels like the get-rich-quick schemers have simply left. What did they leave behind? Are we making real progress towards Dogecoin adoption? Where? ..no seriously, I have been out of the loop so let me know if good stuff has been happening like what I am talking about.

Re: Why Dogecoin Will Never Go Global (Mar 02, 2014)

I don't care who wrote this or for what reason. I only wish to point out the damage so that as a community we can learn to identify this kind of irrational division and pay extra care to support the logical and honest discussion.

Standing up for Doge.

/u/mumzie Foundation discussion: Do you want one? (May 21, 2014)
From this comment by /u/mohland:

Many of us here in the community carry weight, but at the core, this is a decentralized system. I'm of the opinion there needs to be multiple "foundations" -- led by people who want to take charge and make things happen. :) Those that succeed will succeed. Those that fail, will fail.

If we pin our hopes on the efforts of any one group, we will be sitting around doing nothing. Decentralization involves individual efforts!!

/u/Doge-_- "much love. such silliness. day!” Every last Wednesday of May from now until the last Wednesday of May, ever! Starts TOMORROW!!! (May 27, 2014)

Second: this is about the culture and not about the currency. Although I believe there is an incredibly important bond between the two...This is PURELY about the culture.

This is a great example of trying to work on the culture and make fun things happen. It went virtually unnoticed (like many of my posts).

/u/Darthfuzzy [Long and Serious, Please Read] Can we talk about the elephant in the room? The Dogecoin foundation? (May 30, 2014)

Nevertheless, the point of this is to say, quit worrying about price. Quit worrying about PoS, PoSV, PoT, etc. This isn't the problem right now.The problem, simply put, is that there is a lack of leadership and direction. When the coin first started, we had very visible and fantastic leaders. +/u/ummjackson, +/u/ericnakagawa, +/u/42points, +/u/BillyM2k and +/u/NeutralityMentality we're all VERY visible members of the community. Look, I don't know what the hell happened, but after Dogecon SF, shit hit the fan and all of those people left. Well, I know what happened, it was the fact that there was a disagreement with +/u/NeutralityMentality and +/u/moolah_. From that, the moderators stepped in to prevent a witch hunt [...] I took the position from the start that the entire thing was a massive overreaction and was completely unwarranted -- from all parties.

Dogecon SF happened on April 25. Dogecar Talladega happened on May 5. Around those dates, we had a massive in fight between all parties that left the coin in a power vacuum. No foundation. No solid leadership. And look where we are right now. We don't have a direction or a major goal. The community is aimlessly wandering.

The average number of shibes 2 weeks ago was around 900-1000. Now, I see it at 500-600 daily. This makes me sad.

Its 100 right now. I am not sure we can say its a lack of leadership, but certainly a lack of participation! It seems difficult to understand that there is no one really in charge and that means that we are all in charge. Stuff only happens when we do it on an individual level.

/u/goodshibe Community Discussion: The Dogecoin Foundation Bylaws(Jun 24, 2014)

The Foundation provides guidance, essential infrastructure, services as well as a framework for self-governed and self-organizing community projects. It also encourages support for software and protocol development for Dogecoin and cryptocurrency related projects worldwide.

This sounds ideal, but the community should already be doing this stuff in every way possible. I mention this because its directly related to the post that I made below. I asked before for support, and I am here again to do the same.

Dogecoin Foundation? Help Doge Thrive - A plea for support of the CryptoTown On The Ground project - message from CGB Core Team (Jun 27, 2014)

I think the importance of merchant adoption is lost on no one here! Please consider supporting our coin-neutral project. We are working hard to build an understanding within the cryptosphere so that we can all push forward to actual adoption of cryptocurrencies! What problem does it solve? That businesses have no local support to turn to if they want to accept crypto. They have to go online and talk to "internet people." Your local CryptoMall will have resources and consultants on board to tailor your adoption of crypto to your needs. This is in the spirit of self sufficiency and decentralization. Relying on local support networks. 

Check this infographic! CryptoTown On The Ground open community project - The cryptosphere is losing cohesion. We need your support!

The actual adoption of cryptocurrencies should be a prime objective. There are so many unknowns, and the only way to do it is to support on the ground adoption and experimentation. I am working with some good people in Barrie to bring back commons/collective space which would be a great foundation for a cryptomall.

/u/langer_hans My view on the foundation, confusion and development(Jun 28, 2014)

it feels like the foundation got way more political [...] The foundation should concentrate on what it is about by definition. Not politics to say the least. Not personal attacks, not causing confusion with statements out of context, not pursuing anything not related to what they were set up for. I dearly hope that the foundation will be able to help the coin and its community and that it will never overstep any lines.

I only wanted to highlight here that this is typical of what happens when we pass off our responsibilities to pseudo-official groups. Decentralization could be called disintermediation. We are removing third parties and interacting as peers. This is why mtGox happened and why a scandal or anything can get in the way, because we are not responsible (able to respond).

Business Point of Sale software options for DogeCoin - Planning stages for Barrie CryptoMall (Jul 09, 2014)

The most important feature is automatic conversion to Doge of the service cost. In the simplest implementation, we can manually roll over keys as wallets fill up, and post the public key in the office. This is all still very new, and we are pioneering the methods. Any related software or ideas are appreciated.

I was really trying to help create a link between local experimentation, and global support. I still think that this is a critical piece towards mainstream adoption.

/u/dogebabycn I formally request the Foundation authorized me to negotiate with China's top exchanges (Nov 02, 2014)

1, Enhance trading volume more than 10 times;
2,10 times or more raise the prices;
4, DOGE have reliable, secure global trading center; China's top exchanges launched international editions [...] Each site get venture capital more than 10 million US dollars at 2013, will not appear Moopay collapse tragedy. .

[...] How to negotiate? I have my own plans. In the past 3weeks, my friend had told my plan to the Foundation, but still no reply. Anger, let me publish this post.

Perhaps, the Foundation has its own plan, but we have been waiting this for a long time, anyone's patience is limited. If the Foundation opposes China's top exchanges, or they think I am not qualified, please tell me. I hate the endless wait.

and from this reply by /u/Fulvio55:

First, you do not need permission or authorisation from anyone to promote Dogecoin. You are most welcome to do anything you can as an individual or group of individuals. We are all equal in this, and there is no central authority.

Secondly, the Foundation is at this time still being formed. There is a temporary board, and a very small core group of founding members who are trying to meet all the requirements to enable everyone who wishes to to join, and to elect a permanent board.

I stumbled across this post at one point and included it for two reasons: its a somewhat incredible appeal to greed though nice enough and totally plausible, and because it highlights the failure of this expectation. There was a competition to replace the Bitcoin Foundation with open and automated protocols but I cant find the link. We should think how we can decentrailze at any level.

/u/PieMan2201 I think there is a problem with this subreddit (yesterday)

A majority of the content is composed of the same pictures, GIFs, and memes. I know that the community is supposed to be kind and welcoming, and I support that, but a lot of this content isn't relevant to Dogecoin. The subreddit has become a weird mix between /r/SuperShibe[1] and /r/AdviceAnimals[2] with a hint of cryptocurrency thrown in.

This seems to be another difficulty of this sub, but I think that we can find ways around it without limiting people. For example, the weekly discussion thread should include an archive of past threads, and curate any community discussions. Participatory type posts could be prefixed with Community discussion, etc.

/u/SitDownCreepa What can we do to bring more attention to dogecoin? (yesterday)

Hey fellow shibes!
I have been following dogecoin for almost a year now!
I remember this subreddit used to explode with energy and fun. We always had a New project going on and there was always posts about people getting their first doge and stuff.
I feel now we are only just posting doge merch and things. I always seem to be seeing stuff that applies to people who already know about crypto/doge.
We need to do something more to make sure this coin succeeds.
What are your ideas?

I was really happy to see this post up. I know that a lot of people really feel like a part of something special in this community. I think that we have a lot to offer each other. Last year I offered a way to connect businesses, users, and developers to rapidly advance adoption. This year I am offering that, as well as a way to spread cooperative culture through positive experience outreach.

It turns out that adoption of crypto would take a major shift in culture. We can do it much sooner than one might think. I would like to clarify how this all works but it might be best to just throw this post up and answer questions. I will make another post tomorrow morning if we can come up with some solid conversation. I would love to collaborate with the Doge community on my work in Barrie. Let's help each other out and make 2015 a year of celebration! Please check over my work, try to get an idea of what I am doing, ask questions, let people know.