Bitcointalk.org 101. How to Use? How to Post?
The forum in a nutshell
Bitcointalk was launched on November 22, 2009, to become one of the first-ever resources about cryptocurrencies and things blockchain. At this point, the forum encompasses a slew of various topics and covers key cryptoworld areas, including dedicated ICO panels. Bitcointalk unites over 460,000 community members and has a huge impact on the crypto space. The momentum of the forum for ICO promos can be measured by the statistics on fresh ICO announcements — there are thousands of views by the relevant audience.
Unlike Reddit and Telegram, for instance, Bitcointalk has a complicated membership program. The forum may estimate the member’s activity, and contributions or relevance of members’ comments, and apply stats-based weights in relation to the member’s experience. That’s how readers can recognize more influential members and, ultimately, benefit from greater transparency compared to other forums where it’s close to impossible to tell who’s behind the monitor.
How to start
Launching an ICO pre-sale or sale? Create a Bitcointalk thread to expose yourself to investors. The key elements of the thread include name, text message, design block, important links, and a disclaimer. Below you will find detailed instructions:
Step 1. Create an account
You won’t be able to change the account name afterwards so think twice before picking your variant. The earlier you register the quicker you’ll earn a rank.
Step 2. Start boosting your rank
You are required to have at least a Junior Member Rank to start publishing design blocks for your thread. Otherwise, it won’t be displayed as a creative but rather as a line of code. Read more about rank rules here. Bear in mind there is no shortcut in this game: to obtain a Junior membership you’ll need to be actively contributing to the forum for about six weeks. Also, some postings may be removed by the moderator for a number of reasons. Keep checking your profile to make sure you’re posting enough to get the first rank.
It makes sense to register multiple accounts on Bitcointalk since there is a limitation on the number of postings that may be published in a certain period (14 days). That way, you’re covering your bases in case one of the accounts gets banned, say, for off-topic postings or regular fluctuations of geo IP.
If you’re short on time and prefer to waive the restrictions and start posting at scale as a Member, consider buying a high-ranked account. This is a fast solution but beware of scammers; every field has its share of unfair play.
How much will it set you back?
According to Cointelegraph, at the end of 2017 you could buy a required rank at the following rates:
- Junior Member — from €30
- Member — from €56
- Full Member — from €90
- Senior Member — from €120
- Hero Member — from €195
- Legendary Member — from €310 EUR.
Note! These are just ballpark figures; prices may vary loosely based on the current situation.
When buying a Bitcointalk account think of using escrow services. Escrows, in this case, are celebrated forum members that act as a third party in your arrangement and guarantee the deal. They usually charge a 1% commission for mediation.
Prepare your thread: Content
Your thread should be informative, to-the-point, structured and good-looking. Focus on what matters in the posting. Keep in mind you’ll be able to make edits later and just get first things first.
Name. Start with [ANN] [ICO]: your company name and call-to-action. Use the capitals, symbols, etc.
Text message. The must-have details of your pre-sale.
Design block content
- Header featuring a slogan
- Start/end date
- Conditions
- Website, whitepaper URLs
- Quotations from the media
- How your ICO is different
- Roadmap
- About the team
- CTA.
Important links
- Official channels and groups
- Links to the press
- Links to translations.
Last but not least, include a disclaimer for your ICO pre-sale.
Prepare your thread: Creatives
Create separate blocks for each bullet with a width of 1280 px. Use PNG and JPEG images. Name blocks by their location, e.g., the first block in the line will be 1block, followed by 2block, etc.
As a rule, a design block contains ten to fifteen images.
Images
You can’t upload pictures to Bitcointalk servers when designing a post. What you can do is refer to an external image with a hyperlink. Feel free to employ hosting services like Imgur, PostImage, Imgbb, or any other source of choice.
Bitcointalk Image Proxy may randomly block rendering of images from different hostings with a message “bitcointalk.org image proxy: invalid image.” This could happen right away, or it could happen in a few days. There’s not much you can do about it. Sometimes, when your pics suddenly disappear you just need to refresh the page several times.
To decrease image size and speed up image rendering, think of a service such as TinyPNG.
Prepare your thread: Code
To code your post, use the built-in BBCode. You may either create a post and start coding inside, or, preferably, bake your code outside the forum and then publish it in Bitcointalk. Another option is to copy BBcode of an ANN-post you like. To see its BBcode markup, log in to Bitcointalk and click “Quote” in the upper right corner. This will trigger a reply comment window where a BBcode of the ANN-post will be “quoted” in the text body. All you may need is placed inside the tags [quote] and [/quote]. Just copy the code and work with it locally.
Publish the thread
Go to the board, select “New topic”, and create your thread, combining the elements from “What do you need” (you can also add some of them later). Preview the content or simply hit “Save” and judge what it looks like.
Keep in mind that CSS styles applied to pictures with hyperlinks may look different in the preview and the real post. In the worst-case scenario, this may ruin your entire layout so be forewarned. Once a post is published, all pics wrapped in links receive an additional margin-left of 4px, but you won’t see this effect in the preview mode.
Want to try another easy way to test your layout? Send it to yourself in personal messages (My messages → New message). However, sent messages count as published posts so don’t get carried away and remember the limitations.
Important! Right after you save the posting, make sure to reply to it and write “Reserved”. You might need it for further announcements.
Finally, make all required edits to the thread and invite your audience to comment!
Manage the thread
Update your thread frequently — it’s an absolute must. When updating design blocks, use the date of the latest change as part of file name, eg 1block_23_11.jpg. It helps to avoid confusion.
Once your pre-sale has come to a close, remove the parts which are no longer relevant, add pre-sale results and announce the major sale. Make sure your support team looks after the thread and personal messages and responds in a timely fashion. If necessary, you can always lock (and later unlock) the thread to prevent forum members from posting.
In conclusion
These a just a few tips that will help you promote your ICO on Bitcointalk. Try it yourself and learn more tricks. Consider this forum as a smart investment of your time and effort, and reap the benefits when you manage to attract the right audience. Now, go break a leg!
