How We Made a Bounty Campaign for a Blockchain Startup and What Came of It

In 2017, I worked at a Russian blockchain startup. The company was targeting the American market and wanted to fundamentally change the approach to corporate governance. Namely, to the interaction between management and investors. After all, it really doesn’t always go smoothly. The collapse of Enron due to the actions of CEO Jeffrey Skilling, the fraud at the “mayonnaise” startup Hampton Creek — these are perhaps the most famous examples. So, our company wanted to deal with this problem once and for all with the help of an absolutely transparent platform for collecting reports on the blockchain. And those who change the world, as a rule, need investors. Lots of investors. And here’s how the Bounty campaign helps with this.

I will reveal to you the dark secrets of the crypto world

A small disclaimer – I was always surprised not even by the fact that such a practice exists. But by the fact that it exists quite openly. Everyone who is more or less interested in the blockchain sphere knows about it. And it seems that no one cares.

A bounty campaign is a method of promoting a startup, when people receive tokens or cryptocurrency for certain actions online. Comments on specialized resources, publication of articles about the project, likes, reposts, and so on. In fact, such content creates the illusion of interest and demand for the idea. This is how it was in practice for us.

Where people were looked for

We looked for “agents” in Telegram and on specialized forums. These were mostly people from not the richest countries in the world. For example, for residents of the African continent, Bounty campaigns are a very popular way to earn money. However, there were many Russian speakers as well. All communication was in English.

On what sites were they placed?

We mostly published on Medium. And then we added a link to Reddit.

Conditions

They differed depending on their “pumping” and authority. If the profile had just been registered on the platform, the reward for a comment or post was less. If the account had subscribers, good content and activity, then the payment was higher. But it was always not real money, but tokens. After the launch of the project, you could make good money on them.

How it all worked

I wrote an article that gently hinted that the management of a large company are terrible people. All they do is deceive naive shareholders. Fortunately, there were plenty of examples in world history. And at the end, as if by chance, I mentioned that such a project exists. We had an English-speaking employee who helped with the translation.

Next, we needed to find a reputable Medium account to post it on. Agree on a publication date, send the text, images, and so on.

Then I looked for someone to post a link to the article in the subreddit we needed.

Afterwards I wrote 5-10-15 comments. Not laudatory, but cautiously optimistic. They concerned the project, the team and the idea itself. And then the hardest part began – it was necessary to find people who would publish these comments on their behalf.

The thing is, I couldn't influence my “agents” in any way. They didn't respond to messages, promised one thing and did another, blocked me and deleted correspondence. In addition, many lived in different time zones, meaning they could simply sleep through the necessary moment.

But now everything is ready, the text is already on Medium. And the first thing our entire team, assembled for this publication, frantically gives it a thumbs up. The next step is a link to Reddit. And immediately prepared comments. In theory, this should have shown the system that the material was of great interest to the community. And in practice… we succeeded. Often, our texts really did fly to the top of their branches for some time. But they did not stay there for long, the moderators quickly noticed something was wrong.

Conclusion

Decide for yourself how ethical this method of promotion is. On the one hand, it is misleading. On the other, there is no direct deception here. Investors need to be found. And you have to declare yourself without having any budget for promotion.

The entire Bounty campaign was run by 4 people. And, of course, they were paid in fiat, that is, real money. And our “agents” received tokens. It turns out that they believed in our project more than we did.

And, yes, the project did not find investors and closed.

Bonus

Enron was founded in 1985 and soon became one of the largest energy companies in the world. Fortune named it the most innovative corporation in the United States for six years in a row. But in the early 2000s, it turned out that Enron had been falsifying its accounting records and inflating its profits. CEO Jeffrey Skilling knew this very well. He was eventually sentenced to 24 years in prison.

Hampton Creek came up with egg-free mayonnaise for vegans. But the product was unpopular. Then the startup founders began secretly buying up their own mayonnaise, and then seriously inflated sales figures in their reports.