Why I'm Investing $1 Million In BitClout

Written By: Dharmesh Shah June 7, 2021

 

I’ve decided I’m going to invest $1 million in BitClout the blockchain-based, crypto-currency powered social network that is all the rage (at least within some circles).

BitClout-Investment-Dharmesh

If you don’t know what BitClout is, I think my earlier post “What’s BitClout?” is a decent overview.

OK, back to that million dollar thing. To be clear, I’m not buying shares in BitClout (the company). I have it on really good faith that one can’t really do that, and nobody has done that.

Instead of investing in the traditional sense, I’m going to do a combination of the following:


  1. Invest in startups/projects that are building value on and creating value for the BitClout ecosystem. Example: I’ll be investing $100,000 in @bitswap (and here, I mean buying equity/shares in the startup).
  2. Invest in $dharmesh (my own creator coin on BitClout).
  3. Investing in other creator coin. (This is less as a way to generate a financial return and more as a way to show support for useful content and tools).
  4. Hold BitClout (the currency)  itself. Note: A few days from now, the number of BitClout coins will be frozen.

Back to the million dollars. Why have I decided to invest such a large amount (higher than my usual)?

Before I answer, a super-important note: I am not an investment advisor and this is not financial advice. I am not (remotely) suggesting you should do what I did. 

OK, so back to the why...

First, I’ve been a believer in BitClout from the early days. You know, like waaay back in March. I just think the potential for a platform like BitClout is immense. Will it be the one that actually achieves that potential? I don’t know, but it’s the best implementation I know of a blockchain powered, crypto-based social network.

As evidence, one need only look at the momentum.

  • Momentum in terms of the community on the platform.
  • Momentum in terms of innovation of the platform itself.
  • Momentum in terms of apps and tools being built on the platform.

I also love that BitClout is not just open source -- but also open data. They've released all the code, and if you so chose, you could run your own node and get access to all the data on the chain.

Further, I like how the project team is thoughtful around environmental impact. Just hours ago, it was announced that a recent BitClout update reduces the power consumption by a factor of 10.  

I am proud to announce that the dev community has committed to moving to
a zero-waste consensus mechanism, and that it is taking a major step in
that direction with a new update.

~ @diamondhands

Also, one of the big issues I had with BitClout was how hard it was to actually join and engage. To do that, you needed to own BitCoin and transfer some of that coin into BitClout.com in order to do anything. That's really high friction. Recently, they've removed that friction so that anyone can join BitClout.com without needing to own BitCoin (or even know what it is). 

Finally, it’s partly because the first time I got really excited about the blockchain and crypto-currencies, I invested in a company called Coinbase. And, because I like trying out the products of the companies I invest in, I used Coinbase to buy some BitCoin. That was back in 2015. Coinbase went public earlier this year (2021) and currently has a market cap of over $40 billion.

Over 15 years of investing in over 80+ startups/projects, I've learned to trust my instincts and as long as one acts within ones tolerance for risk. 

The hit you take from many failures is often overshadowed by the handful of successes that turn out to be massive outcomes.

If you want to follow me as I learn and share, you can follow @dharmesh on BitClout.

Hope to see you there and hear your thoughts.

Cheers.

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