Jump start dash adoption by acquiring 400k users in 4 months

[Dashmaximalist]

Hi everyone,

This is one of very first marketing campaigns which is a Direct result oriented meaning you get precise results per $ spent, which would be very reassuring for those who are looking at the marketing effectiveness.

Bitcoin is expected have around 10-25 million users and it's raising exponentially thanks to 100s of affiliate channels ( like coinbase offering $10 , genesis giving 3% discount on referrals for account opening etc). If we want to take over bitcoin we need to act fast, if bitcoin manages to cross 100 million users it would get extremely difficult to take them over.

we all agree that evolution is a wonderful product, but just having a sexy product doesn't pull users automatically. Users need to be incentivised atleast initially ( thats why my bank offers £200 if you switch).

Most proposals so far have focused enabling dash payments for businesses, which is basically pretty slow and ineffective , users don't start using dash because couple of shops are accepting dash ( that's just common sense right , which unfortunately most proposals miss )

This is exactly why one of first big user oriented campaign @amanda_b_johnson 's #firstdashwallet was a huge success. 1000s of people opened their wallets and posted pics on twitter so much so that the team handling verifications was overwhelmed.

we want to continue on this legacy, and thought of using facial recognition based approach to give $5 to each person , however after having feisty discussions about using facial recognition for unique verification , we figured out that SMS OTP verification is a better and easier thing to handle and has much better privacy protection etc

we propose to give $1 in dash to everyone who downloads dash wallet and verifies through SMS OTP and $1 to for every referral they refer who signs up and does the verification in specific countries where getting a SIM Card is not free*

This has many benefits compared to any other method that can be used for mass marketing that can bring millions of users.

first off , people are very comfortable with SMS OTP verification and it hardly takes any effort except for putting your phone no

In Most developing countries it costs more than $1 to get a SIM CARD ( and most have a limit on the no of sim cards you can get) so our little one dollar gift will not be big enough to entice hackers to hack our system

Sim cards technology is extremely reliant and has withstood any technical hacking done by hackers ( not social engineering which cant be done en masse)

The amount of personal data that we need to collect very little and we are planning to delete all the phone numbers from a particular country once we are done with a country ( all those privacy buffs take sigh now)

Last but not least, total cost per user acquisition is just $2 ( much less than the #firstdashwallet give away ) and we can track it directly with the no of app downloads and reviews we get on our playstore/appstore.

The strategy is not to pay everyone in a particular country , but to pay just 2-5% of a country to sign up, this sort of forms a root over there , and the rest picks on itself.

Bitcoin has huge earlier mover advantage in big countries like china, india , japan and korea but have missed out in the smaller and poorer countries, a stable currency ( or appreciating currency ) like dash can bring numerous advantages to the developing countries. Many of these countries are run by quasi dictators / dictators who impose crushing currency controls and have high/hyper inflation, if dash becomes their national currencies ( i know its a big IF but frankly it's a when ) , it literally gives huge boost to their economies

What does this project basically aim to do ?

Bitcoin is extremely popular with users because 100s of websites are catered to bitcoin, 100s of sites cater to bitcoin because millions of users are using bitcoin, this is catch-22 problem and unless we manage to get a couple of million users we can't really think of competing with bitcoin.

This project aims to introduce dash to millions of users at a nominal cost, who will then be catered by 100s of dash based businesses in future. Once we have a million plus users using dash, we can start running other interesting marketing campaigns.

The current timing is an awesome opportunity for dash as bitcoin is under heavy stress ( because of the insane transaction fees and slow confirmation), before bitcoin solves these issues in a meaningful way, we should capitalize on it

Update: getfreedash.com is hosted now (feel free to test it out), this site will host lot of dash related material and will be a go to guide , in future we aim to include dash wallet and dash merchant map and sort of become the blockchain.info for dash , your feedback is welcome

 

[tungfa]

sorry
do not agree
this is supposed to be a privacy centric payment system and we are asking for cell phone numbers ?
think about it - does not make any sense
(+ who is collecting these numbers , where are they stored , what else will they he used for ,...)
+
total MLM style in my opinion !
(totally not my style)

 

[Dashmaximalist]

giving up a bit of privacy to be a part of crypto currency revolution is worth it my friend

do you think the starving poor are concerned about privacy when their shit currencies are depreciating 10% a day

Privacy is a luxury only for the first world so please get over it and think about the fourth world ( the civil war affected zones ) where making to the next week/ month is a luxury

Do you know why even millions of middle class perished during the syrian civil war ?
Their syrian pound depreciated to shit , so you couldn't even bribe an ISIS guard to spare your life. That's how powerful currency is !

the $1 that we donate could appreciate to $100 and could be a life saving instrument, you want to deny them this opportunity because their phone number is exposed to one dash website ???

let the people who sign up decide on that please, stop this privacy based arguments everyone really tired of them​

 

[demo]

sorry
do not agree
this is supposed to be a privacy centric payment system and we are asking for cell phone numbers ?
think about it - does not make any sense
(+ who is collecting these numbers , where are they stored , what else will they he used for ,...)
+
total MLM style in my opinion !
(totally not my style)

If Dash really cares about privacy, then why you financed a lot of meetings where people show their faces in front of a camera? Why you supported #firstdashwallet? Why you forced all masternodes to have static IPV4? And why a proof of individuality meeting is not financed. Why?

 

[Dashmaximalist]

If Dash really cares about privacy, then why you financed a lot of meetings where people show their faces in front of a camera? Why you suppored #firstdashwallet? Why you forced all masternodes to have static IPV4? And why a proof of individuality meeting is not financed. Why?

yes just wondering why do we have static IPV4 ? cant we avoid static IPs please

 

[demo]

yes just wondering why do we have static IPV4 ? cant we avoid static IPs please

This is a sad story.
Never forget.
Lets spot (and remember) the minority who imposed/supported static IPV4 for Dash.

 

[GrandMasterDash]

Sorry but it wouldn't work. SMS verification can be easily rigged; there are specialist services to circumvent it. Besides, what on earth is anyone going to do with $1??

 

[demo]

SMS verification can be easily rigged;

this is what you mean?
http://www.effecthacking.com/2015/07/how-to-bypass-sms-verification-verify-sms.html

 

[demo]

SMS verification can be easily rigged;

this is what you mean?
http://www.effecthacking.com/2015/07/how-to-bypass-sms-verification-verify-sms.html

In that case, the available disposable phone numbers are not too many. The above site has only 15 phone numbers from various (rather rich) countries. So in worst case, the above site will result 15$ lost. It this a big deal?

Additionaly, @Dashmaximalist wants to target poor counties and not rich countries. The available disposable phone numbers that can be found online for poor countries are very limited (and probably very expensive)

If you want to see the cell phone providers for each country, this may be usefull to you (go to the bottom of the page and search for "International text messaging pricing and reach"). For example the central africa republic phone numbers prefix is +236, and they have 3 providers (A-Cell, Socatel and Telecel)

Sending from your location to Central African Republic
Network Code Multiplier
Central African Republic A-Cell 236 0.5
Central African Republic Socatel 236 0.5
Central African Republic Telecel 236 0.5

I challenge everyone to try to discover online disposable phone numbers for the 10 poorest countries of this list. If you are unable to discover numerous disposable phone numbers for a country, and if the privacy issue is not a big concern for you, then why you are against the SMS otp solution for this country?

 

[GrandMasterDash]

In that case, the available disposable phone numbers are not too many. The above site has only 15 phone numbers from various (rather rich) countries. So in worst case, the above site will result 15$ lost. It this a big deal?

Additionaly, @Dashmaximalist wants to target poor counties and not rich countries. The available disposable phone numbers that can be found online for poor countries are very limited (and probably very expensive)

If you want to see the cell phone providers for each country, this may be usefull to you (go to the bottom of the page and search for "International text messaging pricing and reach"). For example the central africa republic phone numbers prefix is +236, and they have 3 providers (A-Cell, Socatel and Telecel)


I challenge everyone to try to discover online disposable phone numbers for the 10 poorest countries of this list. If you are unable to discover numerous disposable phone numbers for a country, and if the privacy issue is not a big concern for you, then why you are against the SMS otp solution for this country?

Do some more homework, there are many closed / paid systems for doing this, not to mention hackers working directly inside the phone exchanges.

 

[Dashmaximalist]

Do some more homework, there are many closed / paid systems for doing this, not to mention hackers working directly inside the phone exchanges.

there are hackers that can hack everything potentially, but we need to look around for the facts and stats , SMS OTP has been an extremely reliable thing worldwide and many companies have run their verifications based on this.

you can join us in doing the homework and help us in exposing potential loopholes

Sim card technology has been pretty much solid from technical point of view , the only flaw is identity theft using social engineering. for $1 a pop even hackers don't give a shit.

for those who think $1 is too less, in most of the countries we plan to target you can have full lunch with $1 so it's not too less for them having said that, its not too big either (for smartphone owners specifically) , The best part is getting a sim card costs more than $1 in these countries ( along with lot of manual effort) so thats a huge deterrent to keep them from getting a million phone numbers.

last but not least, we can try this campaign with say $100 and check how the results are, if its all claimed by hackers ( ie the money going to the same wallet or something like that ) we can stop the campaign any way, so it's definitely worth trying.

 

[demo]

not to mention hackers working directly inside the phone exchanges.

Poor countries have 2 or 3 phone exchanges. If something like this happen, Dash could contact the phone exchange and make a deal with it, in order to be protected from the insiders. As i said before, a proof of importance algorithm (similar to the NEM coin algorithm) could be applied to those who will receive the dividend, and this will help investigate and discover a potential fraud.

 

[Dashmaximalist]

just bought a domain called getfreedash.com and hosted it

 

[GrandMasterDash]

they are hackers that can hack everything potentially, but we need to look around for the facts and stats , SMS OTP has been an extremely reliable thing worldwide and many companies have run their verifications based on this.

you can join us in doing the homework and help us in exposing potential loopholes

Sim card technology has been pretty much solid from technical point of view , the only flaw is identity theft using social engineering. for $1 a pop even hackers don't give a shit.


for those who think $1 is too less, in most of the countries we plan to target you can have full lunch with $1 so it's not too less for them having said that, its not too big either (for smartphone owners specifically) , The best part is getting a sim card costs more than $1 in these countries ( along with lot of manual effort) so thats a huge deterrent to keep them from getting a million phone numbers.

last but not least, we can try this campaign with say $100 and check how the results are, if its all claimed by hackers ( ie the money going to the same wallet or something like that ) we can stop the campaign any way, so it's definitely worth trying.

Utter rubbish. You want to put your trust in sms otp then fine, but don't be expecting any votes from me.

What you're talking about will either be too small scale and useless, or too expensive and risky on a grand scale. Great, you give away that money then what? What's your plan Dr Watson?

 

[Dashmaximalist]

Utter rubbish. You want to put your trust in sms otp then fine, but don't be expecting any votes from me.

What you're talking about will either be too small scale and useless, or too expensive and risky on a grand scale. Great, you give away that money then what? What's your plan Dr Watson?

check why we are doing this campaign https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/mass-marketing-campaign-using-facial-recognition.16260/

dont throw words without facts at hand, explain why this sms thing wont work ? when millions of websites are this using day in day out

 

[demo]

check why we are doing this campaign https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/mass-marketing-campaign-using-facial-recognition.16260/

dont throw words without facts at hand, explain why this sms thing wont work ? when millions of websites using day in day out

@GrandMasterDash is a chess player. In order to convince him, you have to explain him your next moves.
He asked:

Great, you give away that money then what? What's your plan Dr Watson?

For example, my next move is the proof of individuality, then the proof of importance, then the universal dividend on a regular basis (using fiat money or mutual credit, I have not decided yet).

What is yours? Is the sms otp campaign yet another marketing bubble?

 

[GrandMasterDash]

Random thought...

I haven't thought this through but I'm loosely wondering if it would be better to concentrate on a very specific location within
Venezuela and target a handful of businesses, specifically targeting an entire supply chain. For example, a restaurant that buys fish from a fisherman or rice from a farmer. This way, each person in the chain has someone to sell and buy.

 

[Dashmaximalist]

Random thought...

I haven't thought this through but I'm loosely wondering if it would be better to concentrate on a very specific location within
Venezuela and target a handful of businesses, specifically targeting an entire supply chain. For example, a restaurant that buys fish from a fisherman or rice from a farmer. This way, each person in the chain has someone to sell and buy.

Its extremely hard and to get to that level of targeting and you need to pay a lot more for user acquisition, that's what facebook claims to offer per se

we will mostly acquire early adopters ( which is our target anyway ) , Currency as such gains value only when there is universal acceptance, so our current approach good to begin with. Once we achieve a critical mass ( say 5% of a country ) we can try many different ideas

 

[demo]

The MNOs are stupids, and they vote using their feelings instead of logic.
Whatever we say here, I think there is only one person who can convince the MNOs to vote in favor of whatever version of universal dividend.
@amanda_b_johnson

 

[Dashmaximalist]

@amanda_b_johnson have a look at the proposal and please support it if you can

 

[Super8]

@amanda_b_johnson have a look at the proposal and please support it if you can

She's retired from active participation in Dash. (she is still a passive investor though.)

 

[Andric Tham]

If privacy is a concern, then the technical constraint here is not that the phone number is stored somewhere (centralized or decentralized), but that wallet addresses can be linked to phone numbers.

In that case, is there a way to verify that a phone number belongs to someone without ever linking that phone number to them? Using cryptographic techniques we could obscure links between a person’s phone number and their public key, such as with a mixing service or zero knowledge proofs.

We can pool everybody’s encrypted phone number upon registration, and allow all members of the pool to receive a wallet address with $1 worth of DASH.

Since everybody in the pool will receive a dollar, we only need to record that the phone number is part of the pool. A hash of the user’s phone number can be created, and a “token” can be generated from that hash for claiming the $1 wallets. To be extra secure, this hashing function can be executed offline on the user’s device before they’re sent to the pool.

We can then generate the wallet addresses trustlessly, without knowledge of which phone number requested it. Using zero knowledge proofs, the wallet creation service can ask the encrypted phone number pooling system: “Does this token match the hashed phone numbers in your system?”. The wallet creation service does not need to know the encrypted phone numbers stored in the pool, only that the token matches and the user is entitled to $1 in DASH. If the number pooling system returns true, users will receive their $1 wallet and their token invalidated.

As long as the hashing function is secure, we would not need to worry about phone numbers being linked to public wallet addresses, and the phone number can even be throwaway. The only downside is that if the number ever gets reassigned to someone new that has ever claimed a $1 DASH wallet before, they will not be able to do so again.

I'm not a cryptographer or economist, but I wonder if this is possible?

 

[demo]

If privacy is a concern, then the technical constraint here is not that the phone number is stored somewhere (centralized or decentralized), but that wallet addresses can be linked to phone numbers.

In that case, is there a way to verify that a phone number belongs to someone without ever linking that phone number to them? Using cryptographic techniques we could obscure links between a person’s phone number and their public key, such as with a mixing service or zero knowledge proofs.

We can pool everybody’s encrypted phone number upon registration, and allow all members of the pool to receive a wallet address with $1 worth of DASH.

Since everybody in the pool will receive a dollar, we only need to record that the phone number is part of the pool. A hash of the user’s phone number can be created, and a “token” can be generated from that hash for claiming the $1 wallets. To be extra secure, this hashing function can be executed offline on the user’s device before they’re sent to the pool.

We can then generate the wallet addresses trustlessly, without knowledge of which phone number requested it. Using zero knowledge proofs, the wallet creation service can ask the encrypted phone number pooling system: “Does this token match the hashed phone numbers in your system?”. The wallet creation service does not need to know the encrypted phone numbers stored in the pool, only that the token matches and the user is entitled to $1 in DASH. If the number pooling system returns true, users will receive their $1 wallet and their token invalidated.

As long as the hashing function is secure, we would not need to worry about phone numbers being linked to public wallet addresses, and the phone number can even be throwaway. The only downside is that if the number ever gets reassigned to someone new that has ever claimed a $1 DASH wallet before, they will not be able to do so again.

I'm not a cryptographer or economist, but I wonder if this is possible?

This is usefull, as long as the database is distributed and the task of adding hashes of phone numbers in the database is performed in a decentralized way ( by the masternodes maybe?)
Because if the job is performed by a single server , the administrator may claim that he deleted the phone numbers, but in reality he may not do that, and there is no way to verify whether he is telling the truth or not. At least, if many servers (operated by different admins) are doing the job, some of them may tell the truth and some phone numbers may be deleted for sure. You may also give the option to the holder of the phone number to select the server he trusts.

 

[demo]

Random thought...

I haven't thought this through but I'm loosely wondering if it would be better to concentrate on a very specific location within
Venezuela and target a handful of businesses, specifically targeting an entire supply chain. For example, a restaurant that buys fish from a fisherman or rice from a farmer. This way, each person in the chain has someone to sell and buy.

Why venezuela specifically? There are countries that are more poor.
I agree that the phone otp project should target the real economy, and incentivize the 1$ dash slaves to do their transactions in dash. Otherwise all of them will cash their dash to their local currency, and thus the campaign will be futile (from the dash point of view). It will be a pure charity, and no benefit will occur for dash (apart from the fact that it will make dash known)

 

[stan.distortion]

Poor countries have 2 or 3 phone exchanges. If something like this happen, Dash could contact the phone exchange and make a deal with it, in order to be protected from the insiders. As i said before, a proof of importance algorithm (similar to the Iota coin algorithm) could be applied to those who will receive the dividend, and this will help investigate and discover a potential fraud.

If privacy is a concern, then the technical constraint here is not that the phone number is stored somewhere (centralized or decentralized), but that wallet addresses can be linked to phone numbers.

In that case, is there a way to verify that a phone number belongs to someone without ever linking that phone number to them? Using cryptographic techniques we could obscure links between a person’s phone number and their public key, such as with a mixing service or zero knowledge proofs.

We can pool everybody’s encrypted phone number upon registration, and allow all members of the pool to receive a wallet address with $1 worth of DASH.

Since everybody in the pool will receive a dollar, we only need to record that the phone number is part of the pool. A hash of the user’s phone number can be created, and a “token” can be generated from that hash for claiming the $1 wallets. To be extra secure, this hashing function can be executed offline on the user’s device before they’re sent to the pool.

We can then generate the wallet addresses trustlessly, without knowledge of which phone number requested it. Using zero knowledge proofs, the wallet creation service can ask the encrypted phone number pooling system: “Does this token match the hashed phone numbers in your system?”. The wallet creation service does not need to know the encrypted phone numbers stored in the pool, only that the token matches and the user is entitled to $1 in DASH. If the number pooling system returns true, users will receive their $1 wallet and their token invalidated.

As long as the hashing function is secure, we would not need to worry about phone numbers being linked to public wallet addresses, and the phone number can even be throwaway. The only downside is that if the number ever gets reassigned to someone new that has ever claimed a $1 DASH wallet before, they will not be able to do so again.

I'm not a cryptographer or economist, but I wonder if this is possible?

Came across this yesterday, it looks like phone company security is becoming a prime target:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/21/business/dealbook/phone-hack-bitcoin-virtual-currency.html

 

[Dashmaximalist]

Came across this yesterday, it looks like phone company security is becoming a prime target:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/21/business/dealbook/phone-hack-bitcoin-virtual-currency.html

thanks but i am very well aware of this exploit as i mentioned previously this a social engineering hack and not entirely a technical one, which takes a lot of effort and is usually aimed at millionaire investors.

hacking for $1 that we give to the poor would be an utter shame to any hackers.

The only way hackers could ever compromise our campaign would be to hack all the phones in a particular country and if that happens i am sure the govt will stop such a thing.

 

[stan.distortion]

thanks but i am very well aware of this exploit as i mentioned previously this a social engineering hack and not entirely a technical one, which takes a lot of effort and is usually aimed at millionaire investors.

hacking for $1 that we give to the poor would be an utter shame to any hackers.

The only way hackers could ever compromise our campaign would be to hack all the phones in a particular country and if that happens i am sure the govt will stop such a thing.

True, not worth it for a dollar but if someone's so impressed they move their life savings... Not sure if it would be possible without the phone number being visible to someone other than the phones owner :/

 

[demo]

The only way hackers could ever compromise our campaign would be to hack all the phones in a particular country and if that happens i am sure the govt will stop such a thing.

On the other hand, the same way the gov can stop hackers, the same way the gov can be aware of the people who use dash, and this is not a good thing. And this is where the proof of individuality stands.

 

[Dashmaximalist]

True, not worth it for a dollar but if someone's so impressed they move their life savings... Not sure if it would be possible without the phone number being visible to someone other than the phones owner :/

ok so , we don't hold the private keys of your dash wallet , the users holds it themselves and it's their responsibility to keep them safe and tbh with you if you are putting millions you better understand how crypto security works

btw we will teach all these things on the site getfreedash.com starting from basic stuff to advanced stuff ( like hardware wallets etc ) , this site will be a one stop shop to learn things about crypto and dash. it's not just about throwing the $1 at you, want to make it more like a site that gives all round info and incentivizes you to bring your friends.

 

[stan.distortion]

ok so , we don't hold the private keys of your dash wallet , the users holds it themselves and it's their responsibility to keep them safe and tbh with you if you are putting millions you better understand how crypto security works

btw we will teach all these things on the site getfreedash.com starting from basic stuff to advanced stuff ( like hardware wallets etc ) , this site will be a one stop shop to learn things about crypto and dash. it's not just about throwing the $1 at you, want to make it more like a site that gives all round info and incentivizes you to bring your friends.

Lol, faucet 2.0 It's a shame this is coming before Evolution, the profiles would probably make these security issues irrelevant.