Crypto Twitter has been interesting recently to say the least. As crypto has cratered twitter has been filled with the most vile and hateful talk. People with large followings are taking "breaks" or even deleting their accounts. Generally when they are on the wrong side of the "call". Everyone is angry. Why? Money. Some (probably many) of these influencers are going to lose a large percentage of their audiences in the very near future. Many of they have lost a lot of value in their portfolios since mid-November. They are probably scared.

It has given me pause.

A couple of notes that are relevant to this discussion. I have been "in" crypto since 2014. I signed up for an account on Mt. Gox a short period of time before it was hacked (good times!). I have been through the scandals, the bear markets, the rug pulls, etc. I have lost money due to my stupidity, people's criminality and scams and even made some money as well. Not enough that I'm retired mind you..but some. I use the analogy that crypto is the wild west of the United States in the late 1800's and it truly at times is with the lack of rules (and lack of control).

I began a podcast in August of last year called "Generational Wealth with Cryptocurrency". It's not a trading podcast. It is designed to give people knowledge they need to succeed in crypto over the longer term by investing on a regular basis (called "dollar cost averaging"). I do trade myself and reference it from time to time but trading is by no means the focus of the podcast. I listen to a lot of crypto podcasts, watch a lot of youtube influencers and such.I see a lot of hype. A lot of fluff. And a lot of pure marketing baloney. I mean .. you have heard about the influencer that got busted "trading" on a demo account live right? I wanted to do something different.

During crypto "boom" times it's easy for Youtubers to make very large amounts of money off advertisers. You know those annoying ads you watch before, during and after the actual real content. And that's on top of the constant sponsorships, promos and harping about whatever trading course (for many hundreds, if not thousands of dollars) they are selling. And yet as the very likely bear market settles in and retail leaves the market the number of people watching these videos is dropping very dramatically. And a drop in viewers means a drop a dollars.

Now maybe it's just me.. but i find the ads ANNOYING. I find the constant shilling exhausting. And it is terribly ironic to me that YOUTUBE .. otherwise known as a CENTRALIZED SERVICE ... is where these people hang out. Yep..it's easy..I get it. But it's easy to get kicked off as well. But, in the end, with a large audience, it can be extremely lucrative for someone with a large audience. Enough they aren't telling their audiences how much it is. Enough to make ridiculous looking faces on their thumbnail videos because someone once said that it was 1% more likely that someone would click on their video.

Now, I do believe that someone should be paid for their work. No doubt. And there are people who have spent a long time learning how to trade. So .. i get it. But when we get down to it transparency in this type of situation is a very good thing for the audience. Are we trading for a living or are we using it as marketing prop in a crypto influencer sphere?

I do not ever ever ever want a listener or viewer to have the slightest down that I would be influenced by any $$$ or other benefits that I might receive. I will not EVER have sponsors for my podcast. I regularly discuss different products (a Ledger hardware wallet recently as an example) and if I'm sponsored by any time of hardware product like that it is bound to influence that discussion. The only way I see currently getting a direct fixed payment from a customer is for something like a closed group where for a low fee (say $10 or $20 a month at a month-to-month rate) I spend a lot of time helping people reach their trading goals..it's not something i'm planning right now by any means but would be reasonable for much more hands on help.

No paid promotions. I have a very small podcast by "crypto" standards and yet i'm ALREADY getting emails saying things along the line of "how much would it cost to be on your show". Are you kidding me? Again, how can I report the news and discuss the issues while i'm receiving reimbursements for companies (who are shilling products) appearing on my show?

So, it boils down to this..I have three objectives..I don't want to annoy my audience and I want to have journalistic integrity in my content. And finally, I would like to get paid for the work I'm doing.

How can I can possibly accomplish all three? Well, the lightning network provides a way. It is done through the podcasting 2.0 (began and being spearheaded by Adam Curry and Dave Jones) and the "value for value" paradigm (invented by Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak). This article is already too long to delve into both of these but I will provide a few links and a very brief explanation.

Value for value is a system that basically asks the user to pay what they feel is the value of the product - the podcast in this case. Think an episode is worth five dollars? Great! Fifty cents? Terrific! A hundred dollars or a hundredth of a cent? That is awesome! The lightning network provide the rails for the financial transaction and it's pretty low-impact, certainly quick and low cost.

Podcasting 2.0 is a great update to podcasting. Adam created podcasting along with Dave Winer and in my opinion the "2.0" version is evolving very quickly into a great product. I see a very bright future for this project. One of the aspects that is integrating into this is the ability to "stream sats". If i'm listening to the Podcasting 2.0 podcast that Adam and Dave host weekly I can stream sats to them at a steady rate (say 10 sats/minute). If I'm doing that I'm ascribing the value of 10 sats a minute to the podcast (really..its worth a lot more!!). And lightning enables me to do that. This is used along with apps like strike (where i can buy btc/sats just for podcast listening) and podcasting 2.0 apps such as fountain or curio caster to actually listen to the podcasts while streaming provide a complete package.

Several of the podcast 2.0 apps already provide the ability to play video podcasts as well as audio. This means you can provide a youtube like experience without having to deal with youtube and your viewers can support you while they watch the video. Oh do you like the comments on youtube? the Podcasting 2.0 developers are working very hard on not only adding comments but cross app comments as well. So i will be able to post a comment on fountain and see it show up on podfriend. Genius!!! The ability to signal when a podcast is being livestreamed was just added as well. It's going to be great!

Choosing to use podcasting 2.0 to provide audio and video content to my audience will mean that they will ultimately be provided with the best experience for either listening or viewing my content. At the same time it will give them the easiest way to directly support my work. No middleman, no payments in the back room and no advertising. No need to shill anything but value for value. More time for quality content. And THEY will tell me what my content's value is worth. And THAT is how it should be..

oh..and my podcast is "Generational Wealth with Cryptocurrency" available on any of the podcasting 2.0 apps and even the old skool podcasting apps. You are certainly welcome to listen to it.

Now back to the soap opera that is Crypto Twitter.