Epicenter - Learn about Crypto, Blockchain, Ethereum, Bitcoin and Distributed Technologies - Allen Scott & Ian DeMartino: CoinTelegraph and the Rise of Crypto-Powered Independent Media

Episode Date: December 16, 2014

CoinTelegraph Chief Editor, Allen Scott, and writer, Ian DeMartino join Sebastien (Brian is away) for a conversation about the independent Bitcoin media. Cryptocurrencies enable new business models and monetization opportunities for content producers, which CT is fully utilizing. Allen and Ian explain their innovative system whereby content creators are paid according to the success of their articles, which it determines by measuring the number of shares on social media. CoinTelegraph is an independent news site that specializes in Bitcoin and digital currencies. Freelance writers, who all get paid in Bitcoin, produce the vast majority of their content. CT’s long-term ambition is to grow along with Bitcoin and become a front runner in the cryptocurrency news space. Episode links: Cointelegraph Article Contest This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/057

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with the guys from Coyne Telegraph. Hi, guys. Great to be here. Hey, how's going? We're joined by Alan Scott and Ian D. Martino. Alan is the chief editor at Coin Telegraph, and Ian is a freelance. writer. And so today's show, we'll talk about different things, but it's going to be a little meta, I got to say, because we are going to talk about a lot about content production, different

ways that we can monetize that content. You know, we are sort of in an era where a lot of new things are happening within the Bitcoin ecosystem that are sort of creating a new path for media. And I mean that in the sense that, you know, we're sort of developing new models by what we're which we're going to be able to run media outlets. And so these are questions that here at Epicenter Bitcoin we're definitely thinking of and also a Coin Telegraph. So I'm really excited about today's conversation and really dive into sort of like Bitcoin media, but also like the new types of models and business structures that we can imagine

in this new ecosystem. Brian is not here today, unfortunately. I really would like for him to be here as well, but he's traveling unfortunately. So he couldn't be with us. but I'm sure he's here in presence. So could you guys briefly introduce yourselves individually? So my name is Alan Scott. I'm the chief editor at CoinTelegraph. And I've only gotten to Bitcoin pretty late back in March, but ever since then, we at Coin Telegraph have grown very rapidly, expanded our media group.

And we're now hoping to get better and better. Oh, yeah, Ian Demartino. I started writing about Bitcoin, I guess, in January for general tech site, but joined up Coin Telegraph. I think it was also in March and started getting paid in Bitcoin then. And it's been kind of a rocket chip ride ever since. And Ian, I believe you're pretty much living on Bitcoin only now, right? Yeah, yeah, 100%.

I mean, I have three rooms. roommates and they get paid and fiat but i mean i paid my part of the bills and everything you know with the money i make from point telegraph and everything cool that's really i mean it's good to hear that i guess it's not nice to hear that uh that you're able to uh make your full-time living uh living off bitcoin yeah i mean and and writing too which has always been sort of my dream so it it's a nice combo Cool. You know, I got to dump a lot during rent times, but I always try to spend a little bit of overstock and give us a little bit away before I do that. Try to hold as much as I can.

Cool. Well, I guess I'd like to start off by talking about Coin Telegraph. I mean, personally, for me, you know, since we started this partnership, I mean, before we started this partnership, and we will talk about that. in a little bit. CoinTelegraph is sort of a black box to me. I mean, it's out there. It's definitely one of the most well-known Bitcoin news sites, and you guys put out great content. You know, I have a lot of talented writers there that are doing content for you guys. But, you're welcome. But, you know, I think to a lot of people, there are questions around, like, you know, how did it get started? Who's behind it? What's the organization look like?

and so I'd like to maybe ask you, Alan, if you could sort of briefly talk about Coin Telegraph. Okay, so basically I want to clarify that we have private investors. And since Coen Telegraph is operating in the cryptocurrency market, certain banks and governments usually could be pretty hostile towards the emerging cryptocurrency that could disrupt their business. So the investors, they would prefer to remain anonymous for as long as possible. And with that, I'd like to say that our content is completely autonomous. So our writers can, they pick and choose whatever they think is interesting. I don't censor them.

Nobody censor them. And basically, we're independent media that's run completely on Bitcoin. our staff includes Maria Jones she's the general manager I think most people are familiar with her she's the one that goes to the conferences and the events and then there's myself I'm in charge of guiding the content and then there's our of course very talented creative director Dennis Svons he's he's the one that sort of started the whole comic book theme and now there there's a there's also other artists as well like There's, I'm sure someone,

Jing, Jing, right? And a few others. So they're all trying to get into the game and follow our style. Cool. What was the idea behind that whole comic book thing? I mean, because it's really cool. And I think it's quite original. But, yeah.

Well, besides just, you know, standing out and trying to be unique, one day we just tried it out. We liked it. And it was different than, like, CoinDest, for example. that's sort of a standard new site. And yeah, we just wanted to do something different. And our yellow background, I think, does very well with those. No, it's definitely a good idea.

And it's something that, in fact, we've been looking for a graphic designer for a little while to do that kind of thing for our episode. It's not easy to find someone who's able to come up with cool graphical ideas to illustrate some content. Yeah, I mean, we actually got really lucky that, Dennis came to us and he sort of just drew something and one of his first pictures actually resembled our current style and we're just like, you know, this is really cool and we just, you know, ran with it.

So getting back to Cointelograph, then there's, I guess, some people that are on staff there, so you're one of those people and then there's also some freelance writers perhaps come and go? that's right yeah so most of our writers are freelance and they're based all over the world and which is pretty uh i would say unprecedented uh i think bitcoin has allowed us to have writers all over the world and with bitcoin we could uh we could pay them you know instantly regardless of whether they're in the same office or 3,000 miles away yeah absolutely don't think uh without bitcoin the the centralized nature of our

business would work where I mean there's people all over the US we have people in Latin America and people in Europe so it's with all the banks and I'm trying to pay all those kind of people without a digital currency like Bitcoin I can't imagine it ever work. Yeah I think it actually enhances the news as well because it gives us the ability to have a reporter almost in every time zone before this you know when people had to just had to pay their staff writers and journalists, they have to send them out, you know, spend a lot of money that way. Now we're, Bitcoin has allowed us to be everywhere, but not everywhere. No, that's true.

And I think what it enables, because this model already exists, you know, there are publications out there that have writers everywhere around the world and manage to pay them, etc. But I think it just lowers the bar. It lowers the entry level so that, you know, smaller, smaller, smaller, startups can can do this. I mean, we're definitely part of that and you guys as well. So it makes it's an enabler. Yeah, definitely lowered the barrier to entry for this market. Now, pretty much anyone that has Bitcoin can finance operations across the globe,

set of businesses that are global. And before, you really needed to be sort of a CNN to have affiliates all over the world. road. And I find that very interesting and very exciting. And it works a lot better, I'd say for the writers, too, because, I mean, when you freelance writing and you're writing for, like, you know, text mill kind of sites or O-desk or freelance or something, they're taking a significant chunk out of everything. And, you know, this model works a lot better where you're just getting paid directly from the person, even if you're, you know, freelance. And once they're sending the Bitcoin, it's not like they can exactly take.

it back or anything so it's more trustful but most importantly there isn't that huge chunk being taken out by you know those companies that facilitate uh freelance writing or freelance design work yeah i think i think we i mean definitely we've been seeing that happen with slice like coinality or where we're trying to replicate the o-desk model uh and and and bring bitcoin into it so that you don't have that intermediate. I mean, we definitely started working with people with on O-desk when we first started and quickly got them out of O-desk so that we can pay them directly. Some of those people were paying with Bitcoin.

Others were still paying with PayPal. But, yeah, we wanted to get them out of there as quickly as possible. And they wanted to as well. You know, they also wanted to be able to get that cut for themselves. So something that I want to. to talk about with you guys because this is something also that we're both doing is talk about running a Bitcoin-only business. This is something, this is a new experience for all of us. We're operating in a world that is, for the most part, fiat-based, I guess for the large part.

And we're doing this new thing, which is running a company on this digital currency that has some advantages, like you mentioned, we have the ability to pay people very quickly and very easily. And I personally, you know, feel, as a business, I really find that it sort of empowers me to be able to find people and there's a relationship there that it establishes, which is perhaps different from another type of business where you're passing, you're going through bank or through PayPal, you know, there's, there's sort of a common thread, which is Bitcoin. But there are some challenges as well. I mean, not everybody accepts it. There are other challenges such as, you know, the fluctuation of the of the price. So what are some of the challenges that you guys have

seen in running your Bitcoin-only business? Well, I'd say for the business side of it, probably Alan would be better to speak on that. I could speak after that on what's it like be paid by a Bitcoin on the business. To live on. Well, to be honest, I don't really do any, like, backdoor business deals. I'm only in charge of the content. And so as far as challenges with operating with Bitcoin, I've only seen positives, to be honest.

I don't know. Ian, maybe you could pitch in. I guess, you know, there's always the on-ramp, off-ramp of, like, I get paid now. I got to wait, you know, three more days or two more days for the bank to change into fee out so I can pay my landlord or whatever. But, I mean, I kind of like it. It makes it easier for me to save money anyways because I'm not very good at that. And really, as far as downsides, I can't really think of much.

Of course, I'd rather more places take pickballing. So I could just. Well, one down. downside is of course we could, you know, complain about the low price right now. And actually, yeah, one of our writers, he's from England and he's always complaining how he has to, with the price going down and on and off ramps, he's always having trouble cashing out of the system. So, for example, if he has to pay back his student loans in cash and fiat currency, it's difficult to do that right now.

I mean, it's doable, but there's fees involved in all that stuff. So that's definitely a problem right now. Yeah, I think that also reflects some of the problems that we've been having is convert. It's the off and on ramp. And this is where you'll find roadblocks and this is where we'll find fees. For example, if we want to buy something on a website that doesn't accept Bitcoin, we have to go through these hoops and loops to try to find, Like, I mean, I haven't really found some really viable solutions, but prepaid credit cards and things like that.

But one solution we were using got to actually have to shut down because their banking relationship wet sour. So, yeah, I mean, we try to find as much as possible. We try to find people and companies that we can work with that except Bitcoin, obviously. But you're always going to have that friction. So as long as there are companies that aren't accepting Bitcoin and as long as we don't have easy solutions for interaction. with the non-Bitcoin world. And of course, then the problem is you're always going to have some sort of fee associated to using that service.

And I've been kind of lucky, you know, if I lived in New York, maybe there'd be, you know, my banks would be more cautious about, you know, all these payments coming in from Circle or Coinbase or whatever. But also, I've seen some people complain about how, like, their banks have shut down or cancel payments or Coinbase said, you know, looks suspicious or whatever. But I think when you're putting money into a bank account, they don't care as much as when you're taking money out and buying Bitcoin because my bank called me a while

ago about something else. And they asked me if I had a job. And the last job that they had on record for me, I had left like two, three years ago. And so this whole time they thought I was unemployed and just getting payments into my bank account from this mysterious Bitcoin company or something. and that didn't even make them suspicious, I guess, because the money's going in and not coming out. At least that's my little theory on it. Yeah, I see what you mean because, I mean, I'm also sort of an independent.

I don't have a day job anymore. And I think at some point, especially here in France, where having a job is sort of like the most important thing and it's required to get an apartment or any sort of like loan or that's what they'll look at. you know, getting, getting, telling someone that you're trying to pour money from that you get paid in Bitcoin is, it's probably not the most resurring thing. Yeah, that's why all our operations, we try to do everything in Bitcoin. So because the on and off ramps are a real problem right now. One of our writers, I remember now that he was complaining that he has to keep his money in in the online exchange. because that way he can cash out.

And those online exchanges, I mean, some of them right now are not very reliable. But why wouldn't he just keep his money in a regular wallet? You mean like a off, well, because he has to keep money in the exchange so he could cash out. He doesn't live in America. He does everything. Yeah, he does everything through the exchange. I don't know. Again, the off ramps are a real problem.

And so, Alan, you're based in Latvia. How is it there, like, in terms of on and off ramps? Well, a Latvia is not bad. I mean, we got Air Baltic accepting Bitcoin. A few cafes. We did a couple of articles on a few bars that are accepting Bitcoin. So I think it's definitely growing here. But again, like Ian said, if I lived in New York, if I moved back to New York or San Francisco

would be a lot easier. Right now, in about a week, I'm going to go to Amsterdam and then go to Arnhem, the Bitcoin City, and check that out and see what I could do. And I'm going to try to do everything Bitcoin there as well, no fiat. Well, Amsterdam, you might be able to do quite a few things in Bitcoin, I think. Yeah, I think it's like one of the best places right now to go if you have Bitcoin. Definitely. Cool.

Well, we've got lots more to talk about. But first, I just want to take a minute to talk about Gems. So, you know, we had Gems CEO, Daniel Pelt, on a few weeks ago. And we're, you know, Brian and I are both really excited about this project. So this is, you know, it seemed natural for us to work with Gems and to promote what they're doing. So Gems is a social messaging app. It looks a lot like WhatsApp. But we like to think of it as WhatsApp on cryptocurrency steroids.

So there's a couple things we like about it. The first thing is that Gems encrypts all of your conversations. So, you know, this can't be said for a lot of. a lot of the other social messaging apps and social media. I mean, of course, WhatsApp just said that they would start encrypting all conversations. But, you know, Facebook and all these other platforms, you know, can you really trust where your information is going? So, GEMS encrypts everything.

And so that's really cool. The second thing about them is that they really take the full advantage of crypto in the sense that it's also a Bitcoin wallet. So they have their own currency within the app that is called GEMS and that you can, you can share with your friends that are also using the platform. And when users first download the app, they also get a few gems immediately to start off with and sort of get them accustomed to using cryptocurrencies. So that's kind of a good, an interesting step into bringing mass adoption and getting people used to using cryptocurrencies, building it into an app that

is just really user-friendly and that serves as a purpose, which is messaging, something they do every day. And third, GEMS is sort of designed incentives to facilitate growth. So by that, I mean that, you know, when you invite someone and they get GEMS, well, that incentivizes people to get into on this network and build the network and really incentivizes people to take a real stake into the project. So it, You know, when you get onto a platform and you're sort of participating in the growth of that and you have a real stake in it, well, that just makes you want to build the platform more and bring more people into it and really create value. And since you're a holder of that currency and that currency gets, you know, goes up in value, may go up in value, well, you're also, you can also benefit from that. So that can't really be said for other examples like WhatsApp being sold for several billion dollars and all the users getting nothing.

Yeah. One thing about social media apps is I can't remember who said it first, but I'm not coining this. It's kind of old. But if you can't figure out what the product is, then you're probably the product. I think Daniel Pell has said that, actually. He might not have coined it, but he did mention it. Right. Right. And gems, I mean, I think we will. I guess, you know, the product is gems and it's not the person using the product. So I think that has some value right there. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah. I mean, the really interesting thing with this thing is, I mean, the advertising is, I mean, the user is paid to be advertised to. And I think that that model to try to disrupt the existing advertising model. And that really kind of ties into what, you know, to the time. type of things that we're doing is an interesting experiment and I'm really excited about where that to see where that's going. So we really think that Jems has a real shot in building a super valuable tool and taking cryptocurrency to adoption to the next level. So they're running a crowd sale right now on Coinify. It's been running since the summer 1st. It's going on until January 5th. So if you'd like to take part in that crowd sale, you can go to get gems.org, check out the project and participate in the pre-examble. sale and so we'd like to thank gems for their support of Epic Center Bitcoin.

We had one writer, Cheryl, I don't know how to say her last name. Hustle Apple. She wrote a really nice article on gems just recently if you guys want to go check it out. Out there in Epic Center. Yeah, how it's trying to incorporate more female users as well into the Bitcoin space. Yeah, I think I saw, I think I read that article. but you know that is one of their strategies i mean daniel kind of told us this off the record off the air but uh i mean i think i could say this but you know one of the ideas to

one of the ideas is really to make it an app that is that is uh appealing also to female users right i mean let me just look at their logo and everything it's kind of um so yeah i think that's that i think that strategy is is very interesting in the sense that uh Well, they've really sort of tried to make an app that enables just regular people to get into the cryptocurrency space. So I hope more people will try to do that. Absolutely. So the next thing I want to talk about with you guys is sort of like the new business structures that Bitcoin enables, especially for content producers. This is something that Brian and I have been talking about a lot in our discussions.

I mean, right now, I don't want to say unfortunately, but we haven't really been able to come up with a way to really monetize our content in a way that would allow us to pay the bills, pay our suppliers, and also, well, pay ourselves because this is something that this is a business that we're trying to grow and making something quite prosperous. So we've resorted to sort of the traditional advertising model. What are some of the ways that some of the things that you guys are doing to disrupt that? And how has that been working for you guys? Well, right now we think change tip is one of the cool new features that we're trying to integrate. We have a general change tip icon, but we're trying to. to make a change stuff for every particular specific author. So right now it would be really cool if somebody could just read an article if they like it

and they could instantly with one click, you know, give a tip. And I think that's the future and right now, of course, it's very small, but hopefully in the future as the Bitcoin economy grows, that'll be one of the best ways to monetize, I think. Yeah, I think since the, at least as long as I've been on the internet, people have been talking about the coming micro payments or micro transactions. And they just never work because of all the friction in it. So now we get to see what happens when there's, you know, virtually no friction on it. And will microtransactions work? And, you know, I think the Bitcoin ecosystem probably has to grow a little bit before it can work, you know, on a mass scale.

but I have hoped that humanity will make little tiny donations work. Well, this is something that we've thought about. I mean, we always ask people to tip us. I've got to say, I mean, it hasn't really been successful for us. We do get some tips, but it's been nowhere enough to pay for hosting. We've gotten so little tips since we started this. So to us, it didn't seem like a very viable option. But then again, you know, other people have talked about how tipping really works for them.

I think Adam B. Levine gave a talk at some point at a Bitcoin conference talking about how YouTube is broken and pitching this model where he puts out a change widget with a change tip widget with an individual QR code for everything he puts out everywhere he puts out. out that way he can not only get tips for every piece of content that he publishes, but also sort of track it. So it's got the sort of built-in analytics, which is interesting. Well, there's some, you know, podcasts have been out there for a while that even before Bitcoin that kind of have survived on the donation model. You know, one I listed to is Dan Carlin, just for an example. And he just started taking Bitcoin.

But he's been, you know, dealing with PayPal this whole time before that. I think it's just a matter of like size, you know, like there's not that many people into Bitcoin right now. Like as it gets bigger, you know, if a hundred people watch your show, maybe only one person donates. But if we just get it large enough that that one percent is enough to pay bills, then, you know, I think that's the hope. But definitely things like change to make it easier. And, you know, that can only be a good thing. How successful has that been for you guys? Like, you know, if you can talk about, what kind of tips are you, are you seeing come in on your articles?

I would say not that many either. Yeah, right now it's pretty insignificant. But I think the main strategy right now is to tip yourself. I mean, start using change tip yourself and do the micro-transactions, send them via Twitter. I think that's the best way to get more people involved. I mean, they're going to see tweets coming to them with 50 cents, you know, two cents. It doesn't matter. But that's going to get them into the Bitcoin space and that will cause it to grow.

And soon we'll be seeing much bigger tips and new ways to monetize, yeah. So what you're saying is in order for more people to start tipping. You got to tip them back, yes. You got to tip them back. Yeah, okay. Or you got to be the first one. Yeah. Well, I mean, just coming back to gems,

Real quick, I mean, I think that, you know, getting people accustomed to using cryptocurrencies is definitely one of those things that will sort of grow the ecosystem. You know, what they're doing is definitely allows that to happen. You know, change tips also, you know, tipping someone who who doesn't use cryptocurrency sort of forces them to, in a sense, start using it. Yeah, exactly. It's actually surprising how hard it can be, you know, be forged. exchange tip to get people to take money. I went back to a message board. I used to, a political message board,

I used to frequent before I knew about Bitcoin before I started writing professionally and I tried to get them to take Bitcoin and like I just ran into like a wall of hate that, I mean, not like a wall of hate, but a wall of like skepticism. And it's like, no, I'm not trying to scam you. I'm trying to give you money. They didn't want your monopoly money, right? Yeah, well, they thought somehow I was going to weasel a way to scam them out of giving.

That's what I think. Some people did take the money, but it was surprisingly, it took a while to them. Now, you guys are doing, you guys are doing both. I mean, you're taking tips, but you also have traditional ads. I mean, why I say traditional ads, I mean, the traditional CPM model where you put ads on the site. And moving forward, do you think what is, what is the long-term vision there? Do you want to at some point try to get rid of those ads? How do you see that in the future? Well, that would be ideal. I mean, in the future,

if we could self-sustain on just tips and, you know, funding from our readers, then that would be, that would be very good. Because right now we, yeah, we do have advertisements and in the future, we hope to go towards more of the direct funding model. Yeah, I mean, I tend to think that as much as we'd like to, the traditional ad model, I think, is really here to stay. I mean, as long as you have companies who are willing to pay money to people who have large audiences to talk about their products, I don't think that's going to go away. I mean, we may see some variations of that with Bitcoin. We may definitely see a shift towards paying the audience rather than paying the audience rather than paying. some sort of central publication or like an central entity but I really think that the

advertisers are not going anywhere yeah it's definitely interesting when I was in school I remember teachers telling me not to become a writer because the internet had destroyed writing and there's no money in it but what what ended up happening was by you know the time I was an adult and ready to do it there was such a demand for on the web that it ended up paying for it. So I think it's still involved in space and, you know, I've seen some bad, you know, business practices at other sites. But Point Telegraph has been, you know, fantastic and just let me write what I want and pay me well for it. So as long as that continues, I'm not going to hate on the model we have too much.

But I would like to get rid of advertisers and everything. We see way too many ads in our life in general. Yeah. I'd like to add that our advertisement is more as a way to gain trust in the ecosystem right now. So we would only promote companies that we use ourselves, for example, ShapeShift. That I.O. was an excellent product that could convert crypto to crypto without any registration. So I've been using that. That's really cool.

And I do agree that the advertising model. is here to stay. But what I envision is in the future, there might be a way to monetize clicks. So right now, for example, you have to click the chain step button. But in the future, that could all be automated.

And when people just read articles, they could automatically send a microtransaction. It could be like a fraction of a penny. But either way, I think there's something in that technology. I think Andreas Santinabolos is talking about an interest what I thought was an interesting idea on the Joe Rogan podcast was being able to

set aside a budget for like articles or whatever, your media budget for the month or whatever and be like $5 and it could give, you know, two cents to every article you read during the month and then something like that. But I mean, that's kind of in the future, I guess, hopefully not two parts. Yeah, I've got my doubts about that. I mean, there has been some talk about sort of automating, you. So, for instance, say, like in your browser, you've got a built-in, built-in wallet where, yeah, this is sort of the idea, right, where you have money sort of set aside for media that you consume. I'm not sure that really works.

In the last 15, 20 years, people have gotten so used to not paying for stuff. They've gotten so used to, I mean, not paying for stuff through advertising. I've got my doubts about that. I mean, maybe some variation of that. But I think maybe what would perhaps be more realistic in the future is where advertisers pay you directly. And that would force advertisers to really get to know the people they're advertising to because you're not going to want to advertise to someone that's not going to buy your product. And that kind of forces the advertiser to really get to know what.

What are your preferences so that they make sure that they're advertising to somebody who might buy their products? At the same time, I wouldn't want to write about someone who would pay me directly. Even if I tried my hardest and not let it influence me, I don't. Maybe I could, but then I don't think the readers would be able to trust that I could. I'd rather it go to Coin Telegraph and then Coin Telegraph pay me because they like my writing. and they just want their ad next to it. I wouldn't want like shape shift to pay me to write an article about shapeship, you know. I think I may have, what I meant to say was where readers get paid directly by the appellations.

So rather than the platform, so if you're watching YouTube, for instance, you're getting paid for your attention. Right, right. I see ads. But actually, Sebastian, I would disagree with you on the fact. that people only seek free content because right now if you offer quality content, I think it has shown that people do pay for it, for example, iTunes, Netflix. If you offer high quality content, people don't mind paying for that. And I think it's, they prefer that over, you know, going through the back door for some

bootleg copy, for example. So you think that quality content does force people to pay for it? the big enough audience too. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, there's certain things you can do, like, advertising-wise for yourself, like kind of try to make your audience feel guilty or whatever for not doing it. I think we'll see more of that in time.

Come on, man, it's just a dollar. Just a dollar. All this free content. Yeah, I mean, I actually would change stuff. I've seen, I never expected this many people. to just give out money for free, but if people are tipping, I think they will pay for quality content. It's still evolved.

Like, all these different things that may or may, you know, not work, I think we should just keep trying and we'll figure out what works. Another thing that might, you know, how we get paid is definitely going to change. Like, musicians, you know, I mean, I just heard this, you know, overheard. I haven't looked into it, but from what I understand, they're getting paid more for concerts, and they are for their like CDs now with you know Spotify and everything making it so cheap uh I think you know I don't need to be rich as a writer you know I just want to be able to pay my bills so if the new model doesn't pay you know what it used to pay for someone who wrote for

the New York Times or something that's fine but as long as it's more available to people I think overall it's better now I'd like you guys to talk about your automated payroll system, Alan. Can you tell us about that? Ours is a meritocracy-based payment system. We get a set budget that grows, you know, as we attract more viewers. So we have a sort of a common pie that all the writers share. And the way this is split up is based on the article's popularity. So the social impact. So for example, if an article gets a lot of Facebook likes, that article would get give more money to the author.

And similarly, you know, if the article doesn't get any views, they get a very small percentage of penny. Ian, I think you could do it way in here since you're in our party's pie chart

a lot. You know, it just gets split up, but you get to see how much everyone made, which, you know, I guess some people would feel kind of weird about that.

But it's best, I guess, for transparency. And, you know, um, It does it based off Google Plus and Facebook and Reddit. And the only thing I have a little problem with it is I just think there should be a cap. Right now there's no cap. So if one article does really good, it kind of does really well.

It could just take off. It takes a lot of out. And so how do you protect yourself against like bots and things like that? I mean, how? I suppose there's lots of, there's lots of that too, right? Well, we have one guy that, well, there was one bots. on one share is that for one guy's article, and he's no longer with us, I think that's fair to say. But, you know, usually you can tell when there's bots on Twitter because they're all the same or whatever.

And I think we just have a great group of writers that, you know, so far, other than the one exception, that hasn't happened. And I'll also like to add that this is not just for writers. This is our entire staff. So the editors and the artists, they're also included. So if an article does well, the artist also gets a cut. So it's very egalitarian in that sense and very transparent. That's what we're trying to do. And it's a work in progress.

I mean, it's not perfect right now, but we're going to keep trying to develop the system and please everyone in the future. And so just as an order of example, if you write a successful article, how much can you make from a successful article? Or on average? I mean, on average, how much would you make from it like that? I would say somewhere. An average article.

Between like, just for the writing, you know, if I edited myself or whatever, I get a little bonus. But between like 20 and 50 is pretty typical. But like I got on the Microsoft except in Bitcoin article. So that one's over 200 right now. But that's not typical. typical, you know, 25 to maybe 75 or... Yeah. Would you say that's about right, Ellen?

Yeah, that's about right. But the whole pie budget, it's fluid. So as we grow, so does the percentage that the authors get. So right now it's about, yeah, you're right. It's about 2050 on average. But I would expect that, you know, in the near future, that number will go up. And this is all automated, I suppose. Yes.

Well, look, I got to clarify something. It's not fully automated. You still have to confirm. So it's not like it doesn't just do it by itself. But it calculates all the stats automatically. So we don't need a accountant. So we save money there. Because before we used to count all the words and that took a lot of time.

Now it's just fully automated automated in that way. And then at the end of the week, the writer, everyone sees what everyone got. And then the next day, the payments go out and people just confirm it. And after that, they get into their wallet. Now, have you ever, has it ever crossed your mind or has it ever occurred to anybody to maybe have a coin telegraph currency with which you would pay your writers? But advertisers would also, I mean, LTV has been doing this. and I think others have been trying to do this similar thing.

Oh, actually, no, we haven't thought about that, but that's, uh, it sounds interesting. What do you think? I mean, I think the idea is interesting, but I don't think the world needs another alt-coin bios. We don't want to get accused of a pump and dump scam. It's, I mean, not to say that about LTV or anything like that, you know, but, you know, they got a lot of talented people over there. I don't, if I made a coin, you know, it would be a copy paste,

whole crap coin. And it's just, you know, Bitcoin's volatile enough to add another alt coin on top of that that would have another layer of volatility. And then, you know, if it doesn't work out, then I'm getting paid in an altcoin that doesn't have value. And I'd rather, I mean, I like altcoins. I'm not, you know, I had an altcoin column. but Bitcoin is like the one that's right now, you know, it's usable right now that can, you know, I can't, you know, I can't like, I mean, I'm sure there's a place where I can trade, you know, whatever coin for into my bank account, but I'd have to switch, you know, and add a layer complexity.

Yeah, I think, sorry, I don't think a CT coin, uh, CT coin is too early in the game, I think. Uh, right now Bitcoin is the preferred. method of payment. So I think we'll stick that and grow our business model. And actually, we're going to try to include, besides the writing, we're going to try to automate everything 100% in the future, including business deals. So for example, like Ethereum is doing smart contracts. So for example, we could take advantage of that by making partnership deals with those smart contract so we wouldn't need any intermediaries or anything like that and the whole process will be fully automated so that's what I'm looking forward to in the new future. Excellent. Well, speaking of all coins, I'd like to take a minute to talk about our next sponsor,

ShapeShift, which you mentioned a while ago, Alan, I think you guys are also working with them. So, ShapeShift, I mean, the best way I can describe what Shapesh does is really to show you guys. we can talk about it for as long as we want, but a demo is always the best to illustrate something's utility. So ShapeShift is a website, which allows you to easily convert Bitcoins into altcoins or vice versa. So maybe you want to buy some light coin or some doge coins. So they support light coin, pure coin, dark coin, doge coin,

name coin, feathered coin, black coin. And they're adding new alt coins all the time. So let's just do a screenshot here. It's basically like Google Translate for Altcoins. Exactly. That's great. I'm going to use that. Google Translate for Altcoins.

So I think everybody can probably see my screens here. So here we've got the currency converter. I want to deposit Bitcoin and I want to get Lightcoin. And so I want to buy 0.5 light coin. I just put that amount here. And then I put my payment address. So this is my like coin address. I hit start.

And then what happens? So, Shapeshift is awaiting deposit. So it says, please deposit this many Bitcoins to this address. So I'm going to pull up my wallet. And I'm going to send. I'm going to scan QR code.

All right. Found URL. Confirm. Send. And in just a few seconds, I will have light coin in my wallet. So it's a waiting exchange. right now. God, I hope this works.

So it's waiting. Should be receiving it in just a second. There you go, complete. So how long does that take? What? 30 seconds? Something like that? Yeah.

So basically, I was able to buy some light coins about 30 seconds without having to create an account of an exchange, without having to give any of my personal information to anyone. This is completely anonymous. You stay private. your information stays private. They don't even want your email address. You don't even need to create an account.

It's super fast, super easy. And they only charge a small fee. So if you want to get some alt coins, if you want to convert some altcoins into Bitcoins or vice versa, go to ShapeShift.io, give a try. Tell us what you think. And we want to thank Shapeshift.io for the support of Epicenter Bitcoin. So you guys recently, actually, you guys recently did something with ShapeShift, right?

You had a contest. That's right. So with Shafed, we have an article contest right now, and we picked the best seven articles about personal bank horror stories. So everybody writes their own stories about their dealings with Fiat and Legacy Banks. So you can check that out on our site. And we're on the 15th tomorrow we should get the poll up where people can vote for their favorite stories. And the winner of that will get three Bitcoins. Yeah, I read one. I think it was from a German guy who was living in the States and the bank

wouldn't let him take his money out of his account or something like that. Yeah. My favorite one was the one about the Syrian guy who everyone kept getting his name wrong and then kept asking him for ID to clear a wire transfer because they thought he was a, you know, a national security threat. Lovely. Yeah. So we're just about ready to wrap up. up here, but before we do, I'd like to talk about independent Bitcoin media. We are both

independent Bitcoin media upstarts. And there have been quite a few popping up. I mean, since Bitcoin is becoming sort of this new interesting phenomenon, a lot of people interested in, you know, people want to get into that and start talking about it. That's definitely one of the reasons why I start doing this podcast. Now, what do you think, what role do you think, think independent Bitcoin media, such as CoinTelegraph or Epicenter or others, play in sort of preaching the good word of Bitcoin to the non-Bitcoin world? Or does it stay closed in our own ecosystem? This is the question I often ask myself. Who am I talking to? Am I talking to Bitcoin enthusiasts or am I actually doing good work in spreading the word to people who aren't involved?

Well, but I started in tech, a lot of people were telling me that I was good to explain technology. So when I came over and started writing about Bitcoin, I first thought that that would be what I would be doing kind of is trying to explain it to the layman of exactly, you know, to get non-coders into Bitcoin. And still, that's kind of, I guess, our rule. But I think also we're talking to the Bitcoin crowd primarily. No, it's primarily the Bitcoin crowd, the community. I'm just hoping that as the main driver of this would be the price. And if the price goes up like we saw last year, that's when a lot of newcomers, you know, were introduced to Bitcoin was exactly the last year when the price went over $1,000.

So I think that is the main driver of adoption and getting more people on board. and right now I agree that we're mostly talking to the Bitcoin crowd and with some spill over hopefully. And I think who mostly talks to the mainstream crowd or websites like Wall Street Journal or Wired places like that. And I would say if you want to help mainstream people understand about Bitcoin, you got to get them to hire some writers that understand Bitcoin. You know, maybe they poach some people from coin desk or from coin telegraph or something, and that'd be good for the community if it's, then there's more knowledgeable people up at the

mainstream levels. But I would just say when you see an article and it has misconceptions about Bitcoin, as a Bitcoin enthusiast, you should always try to point that out in the comment and shame the writer a little bit into doing more thorough research before he starts talking about Bitcoin. Now, as a freelance writer, do you sometimes write for other publications that are not, like maybe Business Insider or other publications that work with freelance writers? No, I have, but I started writing a, I'm writing a Bitcoin book called The Bitcoin Guidebook with Skyhorse Publishing that should be on bookshel.

So before I got that deal, I was working also on a crowdfunding site called StickBlocks. And before that, a site called Social News Daily. And, you know, I could go back to that at some point, but right now between the book and between a Coin Telegraph, I don't have the time to write about Kickstarter stuff. It's interesting as Kickstarter stuff is, you know, crowdfunding stuff. And I get to write about crowdfunding stuff in the Bitcoin space, obviously. But just general, you know, look at this crazy cat. that's going out on Kickstarter.

I don't have time to write those anymore because I got more important stuff in Bitcoin and better paying stuff. So where do you think the Bitcoin media world is going? Do you think that it's going to stay very focused on Bitcoin and sort of remain seated in that enthusiast crowd? Or do you think that it will somehow bloom into something that's perhaps a bit more generalized as also as cryptocurrency becomes a bit more of a, well, it comes a technology that is used by more people, I guess the masses, although I don't really like that term, but yeah, do you

think that it will bloom into something that's a bit more palpable for people that aren't Bitcoin enthusiasts? Yeah, I started, you know, not to say this again, but I started as a tech writer, and now that I'm in Bitcoin, I kind of found myself as a financial writer, which was unexpected for me. So I think it's just going to be kind of a blending. If Bitcoin takes off like we all hope it will and it's $10,000 of Bitcoin or whatever and everyone's jumping on it, then all of a sudden, you know, a coin telegraph is Forbes or Coin Telegraph is, you know, the new version of places where people go for their Bitcoin news. which is like financial news I guess I don't know it's really difficult to predict but I've actually

noticed more the mainstream media outlets covering Bitcoin in a more positive light I don't know if you guys noticed that but I've noticed yeah I have Wall Street Journal writing articles with titles like Bitcoin could disrupt banks and Bitcoin has been future and stuff like that so possibly in the future they will they will take over as far as the news goes. I mean, I don't know, but CoinTelegraph and everybody else, I think will bloom into something else, like you said. If that happens.

And so what is the long-term vision, sort of long-term plan for Coin Telegraph? Well, in the Bitcoin space, it's really hard to have a long-term vision. We all know how fast everything changes. Let's define long-term. So, like, a year. can we even speak that long that far ahead oh well if we're talking about a year then we hope to still be here yeah i would say our immediate goal and you know no offense to these guys it's a friendly competition but i would say our immediate immediate goal is to become the biggest cryptocurrency news website

and then you know we'll worry about the rest when we've accomplished that goal yeah right now we're just focusing on expanding our media group getting more partners on board and just helping the Bitcoin economy grow because we're not just reporting on the news. We're not some just outlet that's writing articles. We're actually a product of the new Bitcoin economy. We're completely autonomous. We're only dealing Bitcoin. And so there's incentive for us to sort of help the Bitcoin space grow.

Yeah. I mean, as the Bitcoin space grows, well, then that brings a new. companies and it's sort of a new new publications as well and new podcasts and it's a snowball effect right so I mean I think like you said and this is an answer that that we tend to get a lot is you know what brings a lot of new people in when do you notice like a slew of people coming into the ecosystem and coming in and downloading your wallet or coming in and reading your articles or whatever type of business you're in and that is when the price goes up and so So you mentioned partners and growing your network.

So I understand your, so Coin Telegraph has been sort of acquiring and creating new, new properties. Yeah. So, for example, we started with, we partnered with coin market cap and a few other sites, such as, I think it was crypto. Yeah, do you know the other site? Crypto article, sorry. Arby or something like that? It always, I mean, I don't pay attention. Cryptoarticles.com, for example.

Yeah. So we just want to expand the media group and grow like every other business. You guys are actually trying to do the same or no? Well, I mean, so, yeah, I mean, I think everybody knows now that we've partnered with you guys. Our partnership, for those of you who don't know, is what we've been doing is every Saturday we've been publishing sort of a summary article for the previous week's episode. So, like, our episodes come on on Monday, and then the Saturday, right after we published sort of like 600 to 800 word articles summarizing the content of the article.

And that's been going really well for us. I mean, when we first started this, you guys approached us and said that you guys were thinking of doing a podcast. And I can't remember exactly how it went. And then we said, well, you know, we could have a yawn. And then finally we ended up doing this. So, I mean, for us, it's been positive in the sense that it's been bringing new traffic to our website, which right now is not where we're driving most of our traffic.

But as we're building a new site and eventually we want all the traffic to go there and stop sending people to YouTube and other places like that. It's also been valuable in growing our subscriber base, especially on YouTube and also on Twitter. And just personally, it's been valuable in the sense that it sort of forces us to write every week about the content that we produce, which I think is really enriching on a personal level when you sort of have that deadline. Because otherwise, I tend to not write so much. Yeah, I think don't you actually learn more about it? the subject when you write when you write it definitely yeah definitely and and it forces me to I mean myself I listen to everything we put out I always listen to the

episode after it's been edited but to listen to it and stop and think about what I'm going to say in this article yeah it really has been an interesting experience and sort of forced you to think about these topics a bit more than when you're just talking about them in the podcast, so, or listening to it after the fact. How about you guys? It actually got into a coin telegraph because I wanted to write because I know that would help increase my understanding of Bitcoin itself because before I was, you know, I just read the white paper and I thought this is pretty cool.

But in order to sort of master it, you do have to write about it and read about it and research. And I found that writing articles really helped. Yeah, when I used to write for, actually, I could pump out like six. articles in a day. Bitcoin, that's impossible. So when I started out, I was really behind, I think, in CoinTelegraph, and I would have to research, like, all day just to get one article out. And slowly but surely, it's been, I've been able to do it a little bit faster, a little bit faster, a little bit faster, just as my knowledge about cryptocurrency of your own, you know, just every article learned something new. Yeah, I mean,

for me, like I said, I don't, I have these, I have these sort of periods where I'll write a bit more. Not always about Bitcoin, perhaps about other things as well. And so it's, it's always been hard for me to force myself to write about something. But having that deadline every Friday or Saturday morning, I know I have to send you guys an article. It's sort of is nice to be sort of kicked in the rear to write. write something. Yeah. But no, it's been, it's been, for us, it's been valuable on all those, from all those

perspectives. And I think we want to keep, you know, we'll want to keep doing it for the long run. Well, I think we're just about ready to wrap up here. Is there anything you guys want to add? Anything you want to plug? Here's your opportunity. Just, I guess my book, Bitcoin guidebook coming out, it should be February

2016, so it's a while. Oh, yeah. Okay. I'm going to get the little bottom thing to work, but if you want to follow me on Twitter, it's at Ian D-M-A-R-T-I-N-O, Ian's I-N-A-R-T-I-N-O. I thought it. I actually just want to tell you a little quick story. Sure.

From yesterday. So apparently I think I was the first person in New York City to order flowers with Bitcoin. So it was this place, what's the website called After Hour Flowers.com, and they were the first, and if I'm mistaken, you guys could please tweet, they were the first I believe in New York City to accept Bitcoin, and I went on their site to order my mom flowers for a birthday, but their Coinbase API was broken. So I wrote them, and I'm like, you guys, you accept Bitcoin?

And they're like, yeah, sure, we'll set it up. So it was to just gave me an account and I sent them the money, fully trusting them because I read the Yelp reviews that they're really cool. And yes, sure enough, the flowers did come and I'm really happy about that. So shout out to after our flowers.com. Awesome. So yeah, if you're in New York and you want to send flowers to your mother or your girlfriend or whatever, you can buy it with Bitcoin.

That's great. It was a little disappointing because I did look at their wall. it and it said zero transaction so I was definitely the first one for them. That's how I know. But yeah, hopefully I won't be the last. Cool. Well, thanks a lot, guys, for coming on. It was really, really cool to talk to you guys about all this stuff. I think this is a conversation that maybe we should be having again in a little while to see how things have evolved. But yeah, it's a topic that I'm definitely very interested in. I think Brian is as well. So, thanks to you guys. Thanks to everybody for listening. If you want to support us, you can

leave us a tip at epcentrebitcoin.com slash tips. You can also subscribe to the newsletter at epcentreibetcoin.com slash newsletter. And the newsletter right now, I mean, Brian's been setting out consistently every, every Friday. It's going to change a little bit, I think, in the next few weeks. We're looking at different ways that we can utilize the newsletter to tell you guys about interesting content that we write. Also, we haven't really been announcing. new episodes when they come out. So we're going to be doing some new things there as well.

What else do I want to add? Oh yeah. Next week we have Vitalik Buteran. It's going to be a guest on the show. So that is Sunday, January, sorry, December 21st. And I believe it is at the same time. So 1800 UTC. So if you want to take part in that, definitely join us for the hangout. I think would be very interesting. I am just reading about proof of stake right now. And I think I'll I think I'll be doing a lot of research this week to not sound like an idiot with Vitalik on. So thanks again for listening and we look forward to being back next week. Great. Thanks a lot, guys.