Hello,

Long-time lurker (and previously poster), haven't posted in a very long time.

Wasn't sure where to post this - hopefully it fits in well here... Kind of a fun story about how I'm going to make my money during the crypto hype not from investing but from side projects (selling shovels during the gold rush etc. etc.). Also keen to hear any advice anyone has.

During the crypto rally leading up to Jan 2018 I built https://www.topofthecoins.com.

My intention was to learn about crypto and get an idea of how this shiny new (to me) tech worked.

I fired up a new Laravel PHP project and also invested £400 in #XRP and #XLM.
At the time the site brought in $31.50 (0.02793) of #Ethereum (around 10 sales) after a couple of days of very tame marketing, which is now worth £66.93.

The £400 of #XRP and #XML (which I bought pretty much at the peak) is now worth £369 (still HODLing!). I've since invested a few thousand dollars in some other stuff (ETH, ADA, DOT, XLM, XRP, UNI, REEF, BAT) which is up around 25% as of today.

I pretty much broke even on the original 2017/18 rally, plus more importantly (IMO) learned some valuable new skills.

With the recent crypto hype-train building back up, I thought it’d be good to do a relaunch whilst improving the site. Plus, I've been wanting to learn a few new techie things for a while, so even if it earns nothing then I've still benefitted.

So on the weekend, I rebuilt the site with some new features & a shiny new design.

The new TopOfTheCoins.com lets you post a message using 6 different cryptocurrencies thanks to Coinbase Commerce: Bitcoin, Ethereum, BitcoinCash, Litecoin, Dai and USDC.

Previously it would only accept Ethereum, and the code was all custom as Coinbase Commerce didn't exist back then.

There's now also a top message spot for each of those currencies, instead of just one top spot (that's still there though!)

It's just a fun pet project, but I really think that there’s a chance that the site can go viral and become the “Million dollar homepage” of the crypto era.
I genuinely think there will be some utility of this if I can attract a big enough captive audience.

I’d love to know what you all think: https://www.topofthecoins.com

Any thoughts/criticism/indignant remarks? Any clever marketing ideas or growth tactics welcomed.

Cheers!
Joe

Where is the community behind it to grow? You have a place, where you can pay for ad space, but why would I pay you for ad space?

Even your site basically says that it is just a con to take your money to feed your ego.

That is the chicken and egg problem, I suppose.

Lots of crypto topics aren't allowed to be advertised in many existing networks. E.g. no ICOs on Twitter ads.

If I can build a community with lots of eyeballs on one single message, I think the advertising proposition is clearly valuable. The difficult part is gaining the eyeballs, and iterating the proposition to something that people actually care about in some capacity. Or just amassing lots of Twitter/email followers.

With little effort last time round some people started to use it and pay for messages. I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility for this to happen again but on a bigger scale.

I.e. some % of the time this takes off and makes it big, but most of the time it dies a slow death and earns $30 ever.

I disagree with your comment about this being a con and feeding my ego. It's just a fun project. Would you say the same about the shitcoins earning millions or the successful million dollar homepage? It's just a bit of fun at the end of the day, and if it earns some money then that's cool.

Any ideas for building a community?

You have ad space, but no viewers. You're selling the egg before you got the chicken.

It's a con. There are zero reasons to visit your site over the many other great sites with actual content.

I think the % of this going somewhere big is near 0%. You've had 3+ years to put something into the site/space, but all you have come up with adding more coins to advertise in a spot where nobody visits.

The money behind this is likely setting up similar ideas for already made platforms. You really don't have much here.

Even then, what are you offering?

Yes?

To get viewers, you'll need a gimmick.

Create a coin attached to said site and combine it somehow with promotional work to fuel some type of economy to where your site warrants a space where I should want to advertise.

Beyond that, it's up to you to be creative with what direction you wish to lead your business.