A Sex and Crypto Dilemma
Close your eyes for a second while I tell you someone’s name: MrCashKing. Now tell me the first thing you think of. What comes to mind?
I saw that name yesterday on Twitter, on a tweet about my alt coin, UltraCoin. So I clicked on his profile, and saw, very prominently displayed, scantily clad women with MrCashKing written all over their bodies and a huge group of hip-hop followers. The guy is apparently some kind of hip-hop and Twitter master. How in the world did he get hooked up with us?
Now I’m not really a prude, but I am a pretty straight-laced woman. I don’t wear revealing clothing, I hardly even drink – I’m a mom, for heaven’s sake. My kids laugh at how clueless I am about cultural trends and my total ignorance of different lifestyles. So my first reaction was, OMG, do we really want this guy in the UltraCoin community?
On our forum, the response was pretty quick (and pretty predictable):
MrCashKing (about his fans): I might able to get a few of them to write Ultracoin on their body. I'll post the pics on my twitter if I can convince a few of the women to do it haha. I call them Fan Sign Pics.
Community member: Aaaa i knew you are that MAN! Can't wait hahaah
Community member: i hope it remains clean. We have to remember UTC aint a sex object
MrCashKing: lol It won't be nudes. Don't worry.
Community member: Damn shame
Mr.CashKing: bikini's, thongs, casual clothes. But overall I let the women decide. haha If they want to do a nudey it's up to them. Lmao
Community member: You are the reason why I would invest in UTC.
Next came the detractors, most with messages like this:
Community member: How many of your followers will invest seriously in crypto coins and in Ultracoin after the tweets. Yes.... nice and sexy nude girls with nice breasts and a sexy ass on your twitter account as "followers" are nice ...I dear even to say I am jealous (you are a Boss)...
But we need serious miners, buyers and investors and we don't need a trendy and hip hop or rapper audience and sexy stupid girls who write stupid text on their bodies and their tits and asses.... girls who are totally NOT aware of what they are talking and twittering about... but also guys who do not even know what they are twittering about.
What happened to my coin? We have never been about pumping the value of Ultracoin for short-term gains. We are in this for the long haul. The UTC team has never sold their coins – heck, we give half of them away. We work every day to build trading tools, games and plugins - and to reimagine the whole cryptocurrency user experience. We are serious people. And now this hip-hop guy with all his sexy girls wants to join our team.
It’s quite a dilemma.
And to make it all worse, I’m a woman. Can I back someone like this? Am I betraying other women if I do? Am I damaging Ultracoin? Am I damaging crypto? Am I selling out?
I hate the way sex is portrayed in crypto. I hate seeing websites with sexy girls in the ads. I hate signing into a chatbox and immediately hearing “hey DCGirl, are you hot?” I hate hearing someone tell me that I’m not as good a developer as some guy, just because I’m female.
I hate signing into bitcointalk every morning and finding an inbox filled with selfies guys sent me (sidenote to the guys, no, girls don’t like that). I put up with it all, because I LOVE crypto.
But my coin needs to be promoted. And it needs to be promoted outside of the crypto community. I want everyone talking about what we’re doing to make crypto better, more relevant and more used. I keep coming back to this. Should I let my own personal judgments about a different lifestyle color my decisions about that?
MrCashKing
MrCashKing is all over Twitter and the hip-hop world. He plans on “dropping” (I’m starting to learn the language a little, LOL) a new mixtape this summer. He wants to include brochures about Ultracoin when he does. And his sexy team of girls will be doing much of the distributing. He even changed his Twitter profile to have Ultracoin’s logo on it and removed the sexy pictures (you can still see the girls on his website though, if you’re interested. Ha). This guy has a huge following, and the people he knows reach an even larger audience.
So who exactly am I betraying by supporting him? Is his culture any less important than any other? We live in a big world with hundreds of countries, widely disparate economies and people of all ages. We in Cryptoland need to reach out to ALL of them. Not just people that already know about cryptocurrency, but people from every one of these countries, every age group and every lifestyle. And yes, even people in the hip-hop community and girls that write on their breasts.
Maybe I am a sellout. Women might hate me for this. But I’ve made up my mind. This guy, so unlike anyone I’ve ever met, came to us. He wants to support us. He has the talent and the ability and the drive to help us succeed. Who cares if girls send him pictures of themselves? I am building a new cryptocurrency, a solid coin that surpasses just about every other one. I am making a huge commitment to do this. If this guy can help me do that, I am NOT turning him down.
And who knows, when he goes to pick up his next music award (sending good karma to you on that one, MrCashKing), I might even write his name on my own body.
My forehead, probably, but still.
Welcome to my team, MrCashKing.
DCGirl
*I’m the head application developer for UltraCoin. I refer to it above as “my” coin, because I am completely invested in its success, but I am really just a part of a much larger team.