Of course, it wasn’t a complete accident, I just didn’t think people would adopt the asset and promote it as much as they have.
TLDR: I Crypto-ed a dude that was Memed over a REKT
Let me start at the beginning…
There’s this cryptocurrency group on Facebook with some 40,000 members or so, most spammers/scammers but what’s the harm in having that stuff show up on my feed, right? Well, for about 3 days I kept seeing the name, Ismael, in different conversations on that group, it got so bad that I eventually had to ask who this Ismael person was and why were people talking about him. Someone sent me a couple of screenshots where some dude was sharing his frustrations because he invested in BTC at ATH and lost some money over getting on the train too late.
See, that could happen to anyone let alone someone new to the industry, but this guy in particular had a very peculiar way of expressing his pain. In short, he was basically saying that he thought there was some sort of conspiracy with the price because whenever he would “buy the price would drop and when selling the price would increase.”
The Internet can be a rootless place, many think that because they are behind a screen they are protected and can be very cruel to others. Also, humor is contagious. The members of that cryptocurrency group started making fun of the Ismael dude and I saw an opportunity…
I have this YouTube channel that I kind of abandoned but wanted to bring back to life. In it I speak of the subject of Cryptocurrency in Spanish because I think Spanish-speakers are at a disadvantage due to the lack of information about the subject in other languages. I wanted to help people learn more about cryptocurrency and what better way than to interview someone who made some bad choices?
I messaged Ismael asking him for an interview to discuss his experience with crypto, but the man did not reply for a whole day which is a year in crypto time. I messaged him again the next day and even though I offered him money for the interview he would not respond. So I went on to the group and started researching the dude, while doing that I noticed how one of the users was joking around, saying that someone was going to create a cryptocurrency after Ismael, and some other commenter said the currency would be named Bitsmael.
That was it, that was my in, it was just perfect. I didn’t have to come up with the idea myself, didn’t even have to come up with a name, and I was aware creating tokens on Waves is extremely easy so why not? My plan was to create the token, add the link to my youtube channel on the description of the asset, and then give some tokens away to the users on the cryptocurrency group hoping that Ismael would see it and finally reply.
I figured maybe 10-30 would request tokens, I wanted to filter out the bots and get some real people talking about the token hoping that Ismael would grant me that interview and I would then perhaps gain a few subscribers, but in a matter of minutes hundreds were trying to contact me…it got so bad that I had to disable the notifications on my phone because I was afraid the vibrations would destroy it.
A lot of people were messaging me to get their tokens but soon enough I started hearing from people who wanted in the project, what project? Don’t ask me, I just made a token so that some dude would pay attention to me. But they kept coming…some offered to help with publicity, some wanted to help writing a whitepaper, others wanted to accept the token in their stores, some didn’t even know how they wanted to contribute only that they wanted to. It didn’t take long before people starting comparing Bitsmael to Dogecoin, both born out of humor, and I started thinking, why can’t we create an actual project? Give the people what they want!
The competition began…these guys who had received their free tokens started creating groups on Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, and adding me to them. I don’t even remember how they got my phone but all of a sudden I was admin to these groups they created and started gaining a sense of just how big it all had gotten. I was glad to see people taking initiative and gathering a community, at the same time since I did not create those groups I started feeling kind of vulnerable because it wouldn’t be too hard to kick me out of the groups and highjack a project that hadn’t even started. I had a bunch of dudes competing over who I was going to name as a contributor to the project, what a strange situation, I thought.
The great thing about creating assets using Waves is that they automatically go unto an exchange and people can start trading right away. I’d say that’s been the biggest factor that has encouraged people to become excited about the token. Traders, I’m sure a lot of them, saw an opportunity as much as business developers saw it. And yeah, some people just wanted something free but they got it and they were posting proof that the whole thing was real.
I took 3 days in the middle of the workweek to send tokens to as many people as I could and distributed roughly 2 million out of 21 million non-reissuable supply to some 800 people during that time.
The first batch of people got a couple of thousand tokens each, I wanted them to see that in their wallets and imagine all the things they could do if those tokens ever made it to even 25 cents. Sure, call it manipulation if you will, I never said I was an Angel and I really wanted that interview. Then the second batch of people started getting fewer tokens, and soon came the question of “Why does Pedro has so many tokens and I only have this much?.” Fueling the conversation! My plan is working…
But then came the memes, oh, the memes. It truly is a shame that they are all in Spanish because they are gold, they are the only thing that has made this journey bearable, I’m not the type of guy that likes the spotlight and I soon became uncomfortable with all the attention I was getting. I didn’t even take steps to protect my identity because I simply didn’t believe it would pick up like it did. But once the memes started coming out and I started sending more tokens to those who’d create them, the whole thing escalated and I can’t possibly explain the joy I’ve experienced seeing all the things people have come up with. How much creativity, how much potential! Yes, I had to please them and make a project out of this, it was just too good to pass on.
But how to make a sustainable business out of it all? That was the question and it is a question that I’m still trying to answer. Luckily not everyone wanted to compete for the sake of fame and some people have actually started to invest a bunch of time into this endeavor. For the time being, we’ll say the utility of the token is educational. It was born, after all, of the need for education in the subject of cryptocurrency. Had Ismael read up on the subject a little and maybe he wouldn’t have lost so much money, so to those asking what the token was about I just started telling that it was educational and we’d try to look into other uses.
Before I could even start thinking of closing the economic circle for a successful business to be formed, the memes got noticed. An exchange by the name of Remitano realized there was a hype around this new Bitsmael token and I guess they wanted to put the interest to the test. So they publically challenged us, lol, and I do love a good challenge. They said if we got 100 RTs they would make a formal proposal for an alliance, they said we would discuss implementing the token in their platform, and I couldn’t pass on that either. Two exchanges in less than I week? I had to try. So I offered up a bounty and met the expectation in less than 3 hours.
I do appreciate the interest Remitano demonstrated, they actually came through the same day and published their intent to collaborate with us on their website. Which in turn refueled the fire in the people who had received Bitsmael, at this point I felt like there was no going back.
For the time being we’re working around the subject of education and continue to brainstorm ideas create a successful business. Some users have suggested that we commercialize trading classes and whatnot, others have talked about turning the whole thing into a publicity business, some had said we should stay true to the origin of the project and find a way to make money from making educational memes about crypto. If I am completely honest I don’t know what we’re going to do but I know we’re going to do it, I didn’t buy Bitsmael.com to let it go to waste, haha. One thing that I believe we can quickly do to add usability to the token is to create a directory of business that accept crypto and charge some Bitsmael (the guys want the ticker BITM) tokens to get into the directory. That way we can continue to use the memes to bring attention to the directory while we find a way to profit from them, while giving people a reason to buy it other than it being a novelty or speculating. Only time will tell…
As for Ismael, well, he’s truly a character. At most we can tell he’s probably from Puerto Rico, he’s a mysterious man, we don’t even know what he looks like. I imagine him having used his stimulus check to get into that Bitcoin thing he heard about on CNN and seeing it vanish before his eyes. Many have shared their concerns about bullying but in reality Ismael is no longer a man, he is now a concept, the concept of the need for education and the fact that we’re all ignorant in some subject and it’s okay to say so. People see themselves in Ismael, who hasn’t lost some money at one point in crypto?
I offered a reward in Bitsmael tokens to whoever who could put in me contact with that dude and no one has been able to reach him. However, he did post on the original distribution thread and requested his tokens. I sent him 100,000 and asked him to contact me for the rest. My goal is to give him 1 million but I want to make sure he can store them property, most of all, I want Ismael to be able to say he became the first Bitsmael millionaire. Why? Without him none of this would had been possible and…well…it would make for a very good story 
As for myself, I just hope the gov doesn’t come after me because I created a cryptocurrency project by accident. Now I need to start looking into protecting myself and the project, doing everything properly to avoid any nasty surprises.
I could go on and on about all the things that have happened in the last 2 weeks, some dude is even going around writing graffiti with the name Bitsmael against my advice, it has gotten out of control. But even knowing that blockchain can be used to control and big-time, wasn’t it supposed to be about freedom? At the very least we should have the freedom to dream and to be, freedom to do, who am I to deny anyone a bit of hope? If people want to believe we can make this work, wouldn’t it be hypocritical to deny them this opportunity just because it wasn’t the opportunity I was looking for?
Thanks for reading, I will try to post an update about this soon. If anyone thinks they can help please message me, especially if you can help us publish an ANN on BitcoinTalk.
Contract: CwXABCx3Dq5WF7zSLgCfDfgjtMPXKUp22eP7QvexTg37
-Tommy