Several years ago, I spent a lot of money to buy the domain name WhatIsBitcoin.com and have slowly been building it into a website in my spare time. The idea is to create an informational resource that covers a lot of the basics of bitcoin as well as some articles to keep things fresh and provide some less objective thoughts/ideas about bitcoin and how it's used. Now that I am a territory founder here on SN, I have a vested interest in the long-term success of Stacker News becoming one of the most popular websites on the internet. How can I best use WhatIsBitcoin to help grow the number of users here on SN?
The Backstory
When I first got into bitcoin, I wanted to do something to help adoption. I wasn't exactly sure how I could help but I came to the conclusion that when people initially hear about bitcoin, the very first question they ask is "What is bitcoin?". In order to help bring Bitcoin to more people, I decided to focus on answering that question. The first thing I needed was a website.
I checked to see if WhatIsBitcoin.com was available but it wasn't so I decided to get the next best thing. I got the username “@WhatIsBitcoin” on both Twitter and Instagram for free and just focused on stacking as many sats as I could afford at the time.
Over the years I visited the website at WhatIsBitcoin.com but every time I visited, it never seemed like it was ever really being built or worked on. After a quick search on WhoIs.com, I found an email address that was used to register the domain. I got the name Marin and an email address somewhere in Russia. I knew it was a long shot but I sent an email asking if the dormant domain was available for sale.
No response.
After multiple attempts over the years, I had pretty much by given up on the idea and even tried to sell the social media handles to the owner of the website in hopes that he would put them to use. I had all but given up on the idea until one fateful day when I was on Reddit, I came across something that piqued my interest.
Somebody had posted that the domain name “WhatIsBitcoin.com” was for sale for $1,500 worth of ETH. A common tragedy amongst many bitcoiners at the time.
I sent a DM to see if it was still available and much to my surprise, it was.
I thought I was dreaming. I thought it was a scam or too good to be true.
Naturally, I cautiously moved forward with the purchase. I asked him if he was ok with using some sort of escrow services so that I was protected from getting scammed. After a couple of emails back and forth, he said that I would basically just have to trust him. I could tell that he was educated and all of his responses made it clear that he understands the game theory of cooperation vs. collusion and also that he was moving onto ETH instead of bitcoin. Poor guy.
I was definitely nervous but I decided to pull the trigger. I paid a friend some fiat to send some ETH to the sellers payment address.
It was only a few minutes later that I got an email notification from my registrar that the domain name WhatIsBitcoin.com was being transferred to me.
I couldn't believe it. I finally got the domain name that I had been chasing for years but now what?
Building A Website
I have been building and iterating a website for quite some time now but only as a side hustle whenever I have extra time or I carve out some time in my schedule.
I have a pretty solid base of around 100 glossary pages that are just for basic education but a lot of them still need a lot of work and updating with images, infographics, videos, tweets, nostr notes, etc.
I also have about 100 articles on the site that are more than just educational resources pages. These are actual articles with all sorts of in-depth ideas, concepts, guides, opinions, data, reviews, etc. while the glossary pages are linked TO from these articles to help with deeper education of certain terms.
The idea is to focus on educating newer users but the more I think about it, you can only learn so much from reading. You need to be asking questions and getting all sorts of nuanced answers like what happens on Reddit. Like what happens here on Stacker News.
As stacker news continues to grow, it will hopefully attract more new users who want specific answers to their bitcoin questions as well as hundreds of other niche territories that will inevitably pop up.
In order for the website to scale and sustain itself, I will need to generate revenue somehow. Since I don't want to cover the site with a bunch of privacy-invasive ads like Bitcoin Magazine, I have opted to try to make some referral commissions by sending people to the best bitcoin services. Some of these services have an affiliate program. For example: I believe that the PunchPlate is the best steel plate to write your seed phrase for its price and in the US. I also earn a small commission if you buy one using my promo code.
So far, I have earned 0 sats from affiliate sales because bitcoiners simply don't spend and replenish. I think this is largely because of cap gains taxes and it's too difficult to get new bitcoin.
So, I have been building a website to educate new users about bitcoin and looking for ways to effectively monetize it without selling out to ads from surveillance companies like Google and Facebook.
The only problem with all of this is that I have been building the site in my free time for years and I don't have a solid way to generate revenue so I can't work on it full time.
Founding Territories
Only a few months ago did I discover that you can found a stacker news territory and generate revenue from it. I did a bunch of research to see how it all works and decided that I want a territory to ensure that we always have a place to post some of the most generic content like movies, memes, events, podcasts, videos, etc. After some long talks with friends, some of them wanted in so we pitched to found a couple territories. It is definitely going to take a long time to break even. I paid more for each of the territories that I founded than I did for WhatIsBitcoin.com but territories generated me some sats on the same day that I founded my first territories.
Driving New Users
To help drive more traffic here on Stacker News, I only have a couple banners on the site as well as links to several territories like Jobs, Memes, Events, Podcasts but I would like to drive as much traffic as possible to targeted posts that are relevant to a topic. Al of that being said, I need some input from the plebs.
How can I best serve global bitcoin with WhatIsBitcoin.com? What do you think I should I do with the site?
Should I slowly dismantle all of the articles and post them here on stacker news? I make substantially more on here with zaps than I do anywhere else on the internet.
Should I reduce it to a basic information site that answers a few questions about bitcoin and then write all of my latest Bitcoin articles on SN?
Should I use it as a funnel to drive more traffic here on SN? I have become much more convicted about driving fresh sats here to ensure that the SN circular economy thrives.
Should I sell it, buy sats, and do nothing but list my content here on SN?
Should I just hodl it to prevent it from falling into the hands of shitcoiners? I don’t want such a powerful domain to fall into the hands of anyone who might want to use it against us all.
Any input is appreciated.