You always hear about the attention economy, this idea that our attention is a scarce and valuable commodity. These days it seems like there’s so much competition for our attention it can be overwhelming. But what makes attention valuable in the first place? Why do people work so hard to get people’s attention? For one thing, we can only focus on so many things at any given time. This is why they say attention is a scarce resource. But attention can also drive economic value. For businesses and content creators, it’s crucial for generating revenue, because the more attention you can attract, the better your chances of achieving success.
But attention can work the other way as well. What we give our attention to can influence our decisions, how we feel, what we learn, and so on. Freely giving your attention to the wrong people or ideas can lead to negative effects, and with social media, this can happen at scale as any piece of content can quickly go viral and influence public opinion and cultural trends.
I bring all this up because I’ve been thinking it’s time we start being more stingy with our attention. If our attention is so valuable, why are we so eager to give it away for free? We usually trade it in exchange for some piece of light entertainment, or the latest news, but what if we could monetize our attention? I remember there used to be platforms where you could get paid to watch commercials, but that business model never made any sense to me. If someone needs to make money by watching commercials, they probably don’t have much money to spend on the products those commercials are promoting, and what’s the purpose of making a commercial only to show it to people who can’t afford what it’s trying to sell.
But what if we could come up with a better model?
I believe the power of eCash combined with the power of the internet is finally making that possible. By leveraging the low transaction fees and ease of use of the eCash network, we can pay anyone on the planet a tiny bit of money without them knowing who you are, or you knowing who they are, like handing a person standing next to you a quarter for a few seconds of their time.
This simply wasn’t possible before. With eCash, it is. I can provide an incentive for people to follow me and listen to what I have to say without having to ask for their name, age, address, or any other piece of identifying information. It not only removes unnecessary friction, but adds a new dimension to the so called attention economy.
For years people have always said that crypto needs a killer app, but to me the killer app has always been Satoshi’s original vision of a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. A system that allows us to send money across the internet, purely peer-to-peer, without having to rely on trusted third parties or central authorities.
I’ve always believed that for crypto to succeed, we need to take advantage of what it is about digital currencies that make them a better form of money. And as much as I would love to go to my favorite restaurant and pay my bill in eCash, I’m convinced that the best way to increase crypto adoption isn’t by trying to compete with the dollar or the euro in their own backyard, but by playing games where traditional fiat currencies aren’t able to compete.
The Silk Road managed to do this by creating a marketplace for illegal goods where the only currency that could be used was one outside of government control. But I’m not here to say we need to build an eBay for drugs. What I am saying is we need to leverage the unique advantages that cryptocurrencies offer, and one of these advantages is the ability to efficiently facilitate peer-to-peer microtransactions. This can be anything from charging people a tiny bit of money to view your online content, to paying people a tiny bit of money for their attention, which is exactly what I’m trying to do this month with my December giveaway:
In case you haven’t heard, I’m giving away more than 1M XEC every day in December by holding daily contests on Twitter. All you need to do is follow me, and if you don’t follow me, I’m also offering 5000 XEC to any new followers who post a valid eCash address.
But why am I doing this? Why use my own hard earned money to get people’s attention? To raise awareness about the eCash project, of course, because I believe it’s the best cryptocurrency in the world and has the potential to change civilization for the better.
I see XEC as our best chance of escaping tyranny while also increasing the amount of economic freedom in the world. I use it to promote my brand and my blog because I see it as the best tool for the job. While other networks struggle with high fees, slow transaction times, and inferior wallets and other pieces of critical infrastructure, the eCash network offers me the best user experience possible despite the fact that it’s still a relatively new project.
The bottom line is I love great products. Whether it’s my Tesla, my Apple Airpod Pros, or Hoka running shoes, I love each of these products because they help me solve my problems. And eCash is no exception. I’ve tried plenty of other cryptocurrencies and they always come up short. They might have more users, or a greater network effect, but instead of solving the world’s problems, they seem to be busy recreating them. Instead of doing the work to improve scaling and security, they’d rather force you to use custodial solutions, or tell you not to use the chain at all.
This isn’t the case with eCash. With innovative solutions like combining both Nakamoto and Avalanche consensus, the eCash project is already well on its way to becoming the most secure and scalable blockchain in the world.
People often ask if I think eCash will ever reach one dollar and when I think that might happen. I obviously have no idea, but what I do know is that it will never happen if all we do is sit around and do nothing about it. So let’s start getting people’s attention. Share this article, tell your friends about my December giveaways. Who knows, we just might attract enough attention to kill a zero before the year is over 😉
