Adventures in Giving Away Crypto Currencies

As I wrote the other day, I had won an Android tablet from DailyDoge.org in one of their recent giveaways. As a way to pass on the Doge spirit, I said that I would be giving away 75,000 Doge. So I made five 10,000Doge paper wallets and one 25,000Doge paper wallet. My goal was to see how many unusual or non-techie people I could get to take my Doge money. I had a blast yesterday (and it had nothing to do with being my birthday yesterday). Here’s what has happened with my giveaways so far:

  • I had a taxi driver take one of the 10,000Doge paper wallets as a tip. I had asked him if he had ever heard of Doge and it turns out he had. His grandson was telling him about this “Dog coin” that is “going to the moon”. So when I asked if I could tip him in Doge he said that would be great and that he would have more Doge than his grandson.
  • Two little old ladies were sitting in the Fashion Center Mall (right next to the Pentagon) across from Auntie Anne’s Pretzel place. I walked up to them and said that I was having a contest and would they like to win some money. They were very excited. So I asked them the question, “Who is buried in Grant’s tomb?” And they both replied “Grant????”. I told them they both won and gave them each a 10,000Doge paper wallet. They looked at me and one of them asked, “Is this a coupon? Is it a gift card?” I quickly told them that it was a crypto-currency called Dogecoin and that they could follow the instructions on the back of the paper wallet and exchange the Doge into other currencies. One muttered under her breath that this was silly. I have a feeling that there is either going to be a very confused bank teller trying to explain to the lady that she can’t just deposit this into her bank account…. or those two ladies will just trash 20,000Doge in the mall trash cans.
  • I gave another 10,000Doge wallet to a young kid in our apartment complex (about 10 years old) who said he LOVED Doge when he saw the paper wallets in my hand. He ran off to show his mom and either she’ll be happy about it or I’ll have a cop showing up at my door asking why I’m contributing to the delinquency of minors.
  • But my favorite story of giving away doge happened at McDonalds. Remember, my goal was to find non-traditional Doge users to try and get new users into the community. Well, there is a VERY talkative homeless guy who sits outside a nearby McDonalds. I’ve had a few conversations with him in the past and I’ve bought him a meal or two. Well, I sat down with him and talked about crypto-currency and governments trying to control it. All you have to do is mention the “government” and he goes off on one of his hysterical rants. Anyway, I showed him my 25,000Doge paper wallet and explained how you add Doge to the wallet and how you can extract it and even the current exchange rate of Doge. He asked me if he could use that to buy a meal at McDonalds. I told him that I didn’t think McDonalds accepts Doge, but maybe they would in the future. That was all he needed, he snatched the 25,000Doge paper wallet out of my hand and marched into the McDonalds. Watching from outside he waved his hands, shouted a little, and SOMEHOW, he convinced the young man at the counter to accept his Doge payment. He walked back outside with a Double Quarter Pounder Meal with a HUGE smile on his face. I looked at him and said, “You just paid over $30 USD for that meal!!!” He looked at me and laughed, “No, I didn’t pay anything, you did!” I’m assuming the McDonalds clerk knew about Dogecoins and just paid for this guys meal out of his own money and pocketed the 25,000 Doge. But it was the funniest thing watching some homeless guy paying for McDonalds with Doge.

So I’ve still got one more 10,000Doge wallet to give away. Maybe I’ll do it online or see who I meet today when I go out and run some errands. This has been a blast. I really want to encourage everyone to try to “give away” Doge to people who might not know anything about the coin, it can lead to some very funny stories.

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