Some of you might know me as Monero Master who developed the MCEP. I've been featured on Monero Talk with Douglas Tuman and was an early adopter of XMR Bazaar.

My day job is as a professional digital marketer who manages large amounts of ad spend for some of the largest tabletop gaming brands in the world. I'm currently developing my own board game that encourages Monero adoption.

I'm always keeping an eye out on social media trends and new spaces as it is important for me to know how people interact with the internet to promote products and services.

I could instantly see how XMR Bazaar was going to be a hit over Monero Market due to its superior design and the fact there was a constant traffic stream due to the Monero Talk podcast. I've tried many Monero community spaces (Reddit, SimpleX, Session, Twitter, Substack, Matrix, Nostr, forums etc.) I can now see an advantage of Stasher over other Monero online community spaces that I think would be helpful to outline here.

1. Ease of Use1. Ease of Use

Stasher stands out with it's clean layout and familiarity to popular social media sites like Reddit. Creating an account and posting takes a matter of minutes. A simple email verification log-in is a great idea and a very simple way to quickly get into the site.

There is no seed back up, password setting, downloading apps etc. This ease of onboarding makes it a great fit for quick adoption.

2. The Problem of Bots2. The Problem of Bots

Bots are a huge problem for all social media, this is why so many of them require ID verification and why as I digital marketer I have to take certain precautions when setting up advertising campaigns that mitigate bot traffic.

With Stashers XMR posting / tip structure it means that bot traffic will be limited allowing the community to filter content based on the value of posts in a free market. Which leads into the third point...

3. The Problem of Censorship / Engagement Farming3. The Problem of Censorship / Engagement Farming

Too much of social media is modeled after B. F. Skinner's Operant Conditioning techniques of behaviour modification. Using variable reinforcement systems to make the news feed a digital slot machine to keep you scrolling. This creates an economy of addiction whereby the less self control you have, the more you consume, and the more money the platform generates through paid impressions of advertising.

This all incentivises an online culture of "engagement" farming via rage bait, stolen content and clickbait.

The tipping system on Stasher puts the power into the hand of the user again and not a shadow algorithm designed by fiendish technocrats to modify your perception of reality and therefore control or influence your behaviour.

Theoretically, the feed on Stasher will be influenced by the real actions of the Monero economy and should provide a better user experience for everyone. This eliminates low effort content posting as well as algorithmic censorship.

4. The Right Incentives

A system where posting becomes cheaper once you are "established" with a weekly payout rewards those who add value to the economy of ideas here.

The affiliate system also motivates anyone with an audience, publishers, podcasters, YouTubers etc. to introduce them to the site or host their community space here.

I'm currently hosting the Cypherpunk Board Game community on SimpleX - but the problem I foresee is having limited tools to block bad actors.

Something like Stasher automatically filters bad actors from a community with the upvote system and the need to spend XMR to post will likely limit spam.

5. Cypherpunk Ethos5. Cypherpunk Ethos

Stasher seems to be tapping into the Cypherpunk ethos of the "exit and build" and permissionless interactions psyche. The integrated use of Monero is going to attract all the right people for the right reasons.

Overall I'm excited to see something like this exist for the Monero community, as it has many factors going for it, and will be keeping a close eye on how it develops! 🙌