How much are your favourite Bitcoin influencers, educators, and speakers being paid, by whom, and what does that do to the Bitcoin content and podcasts we consume?
- Ads: A single 300K-view video can earn $5,000+ before sponsorships. The incentive is to create content optimised for emotional reactions and clicks.
- Sponsors: Publicly filed press releases from a single Bitcoin company show a creator sponsorship at $22,000/month in cash and shares, and another exceeding $480,000 over 18 months. At that rate, what creator is going to scrutinise the service paying their salary? The audience never sees what wasn't said.
- Affiliate Deals: Some of the most recommended Bitcoin services pay creators up to $450 per converted lead. 57% of the top channels I audited had at least one undisclosed affiliate link. When that's not disclosed, you hear a personal endorsement, but what you're actually getting is a referral payment disguised as a personal endorsement.
- Conferences: Speaking slots, sponsors, and audience size feed each other in a loop that compounds and amplifies certain voices. I was offered a fully paid trip to a major conference plus a six-figure sum to present. Almost 1.5 Bitcoin. I turned it down because the offer itself was exactly what this series is about, fiat incentives everywhere...
Here's all the data I gathered on the marketing side: https://daniella.io/bitcoin-marketing
So I need a lot more sats to sponsor someone ?
You're on Stacker News, a value for value platform. You're already supporting content you believe in ⚡️ That's all that matters.
Do Bitcoin videos get 300k views?
The bigger channels regularly do, especially when the titles lean into price predictions and fear. Go to YouTube and search for "Bitcoin," then filter by popularity. Top videos >500k views are about Satoshi being from the CIA, Bitcoin being a scam, the price going to the moon, amalgamations with crypto, quantum ending the protocol... Just fear, FUD, price. Whatever sells gets the clicks.
Wow, amazing research. I always feel a little bit gross going back to those copium podcasters. Even when bitcoin is down, they are up (and even more so, perhaps!)
Thank you. I do too, had my moments of getting sucked back into the noise. And yes, even if ad revenue is down, ongoing sponsorships and high ticket conferences pay well.
sickening
Good to be aware of what's going on, viewers have the power.
Great research.
Thanks ⚡️
Daniella, really enjoyed this. Solid analysis and those press release numbers hit hard.
Any plans to expand it? Happy to collaborate on automating the data collection (monitoring public releases...) and doing some smart pragmatic modeling for broader coverage.
I’ve been leaning toward expanding the orange-dev-suite work to 'influencers' so we can generate insights like yours at scale
Also loved your piece on the nostr retention problem.
Thank you, they sure do. And thanks for reading the Nostr article, means a lot. Just had a look at your work, really cool, I especially noticed the "Institutionalization & Independence" chart: https://sorukumar.github.io/orange-dev-tracker/health.html It's in line with what I discussed in the developer article from the fiat incentives series, there are less and less independent voices in development: https://daniella.io/bitcoin-development/ Sure for insights, feel free to reach out: https://daniella.io/contact
Can they give me money I’m invisible because of them