Documenting the World's First BADcoin Purchase/Sale

May 25 - BADcoin Cactus Day

The world's first purchase/sale was made on 5/25/2019 using the BADcoin (BAD) cryptocurrency...60,000 BAD for a cowboy cactus toy.

A Little Background

The Bad Crypto Podcast (https://badcryptopodcast.com/) started BADCOIN which turned into BADcoin (https://badcoin.net/). The new coin is now about a month and a half old. The old BADCOIN piggybacked on the BitShares platform. It was a pre-mined coin, and as such, was essentially worthless (anyone can quickly put out such a coin for almost nothing--like a government printing fiat currency). The new BADcoin is different in that it is a mineable, proof-of-work coin. Truth-be-told, there was a pre-mine in the first block, consisting of 6 of the eventual 21 billion BADcoins.

A Value Proposition

In the world of cryptocurrency, people often say, "Digital currency has no value." Proving value usually means using the crypto to buy something, preferably something tangible. Crypto has no value? It's likely hard to convince a person in a hyper-inflation nation that their fiat has value, but their crypto, with which they buy food with, has none.

I figured I'd explore any real-world value of BAD, so an auction was appropriate. I had a small toy laying around, figured that'd work, mashed up a simple form-based web page to post bids, and started an auction. The main web page is at http://br549.mywebcommunity.org/badcoin/.

Anything for sale requires a bit of advertising and a bit of marketing. The natural places to advertise were where the targeted audience congregates. So, off to the BADcoin hangouts on Telegram and Discord. I put out a note. To market, I tried to personalize things a bit, to give the little cactus fellow some character with updates. Although I didn't intend to do it at first, I wound up with almost daily updates: http://br549.mywebcommunity.org/badcoin/#updates.

The little fellow got around. He rock-climbed, attended outdoor concerts, gardened, got in a fight - and won (http://br549.mywebcommunity.org/badcoin/06kxl.html), flew up north then warmed by the fire, lumberjacked, skinny-dipped, made a strong argument against the frequent tulip mania-cryptocurrency comparison, fell in love, then had his heart broken - same day, in about 5 minutes actually (http://br549.mywebcommunity.org/badcoin/12xuk.html).

The Auction

The auction went down at http://br549.mywebcommunity.org/badcoin/auction/. I billed it as looking for a legend...the first person to make the first BADcoin purchase. Okay, legend is an over-statement, but fun.

For posterity, the bidding follows:

Winner, Verification, and Purchase Received

Telegram user heinzcatsoup won the auction and became the BADcoin legend to make the world's first BAD purchase. Now, to verify. Shortly after the auction ended, the payment was made to address BFdKiijh521AQwZwbCHN8n4wxUtH5cufYA, transaction id: https://blockingbad.com/tx/c3b36bd2e0b2287cb4e82f1aedd63df6addc1e620c6f9ee32e8079410606ada6.

And, there it is. I decided to share a bit with those who placed a bid. 525 BAD (for May 25) were sent out from that address to a few who provided addresses.

I shipped the little guy out on Tuesday, 5/28 (USPS was closed 'til then due for Memorial Day weekend).

And he arrived at his new home on May 31, 2019.

Heinzcatsoup posted this note and picture on Telegram a few days later:

And the breaking news: the cactus was back up for sale! At an even larger asking price of 100K! And a quick vote of approval from Mr. Joel Comm. Neat stuff.

Pickle Pizza

Bitcoin has its pizza day, 5/22, BADcoin has its cactus day, 5/25. I'll throw in pickle pizza. Why? Because at first I thought the little guy was a pickle. My wife finally broke it to me that he's actually a cactus. "Oh, yeah," I said. Plus, you just need to have pizza for the first-ever purchase using a coin. Pickle pizza. Apparently, it's an actual thing: https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/recipes/a55777/pickle-pizza-recipe/, do a search for it.

I suppose you could go all-out and eat cactus pizza. Many folks do cook and eat cactus. I just searched "cactus recipes" and was surprised at all the things that came up. Side note, while camping once, and being dull-witted, I decided to try to fry some prickly pear cactus over the fire. I merely learned that cacti not only have big thorns, which are easily seen, but also thousands of tiny invisible thorns that go in and will simply not come out. Major mistake. I don't advise it.

So...looking forward to next May 25. :)