I just minted my first NFT on BitClout. I feel like Hal Finney receiving the first Bitcoin transaction ever back in 2009.

It's exciting, smooth and it took less time than baking an egg.

I felt upgrading myself to the future.

BitClout moves forward where older decentralized content platforms halted or became centralized, asking gatekeepers fees.

It's an open-source cryptocurrency project and social media platform in one where users can buy and sell "creator coins" based on people's reputations.

Quality x Value x Marketing = {yourtoken}Price

You can reshuffle this any way you like.

In other words, when I deliver enough high-quality content, and thus bring value, and get myself out there, this will determine my price on the platform. I will become my own coin.

Read that again, the last part.

The other element that will determine my value is the price of the native token, DESO is $110,- as a write this. You literally can invest in me, and my creative future! Or any content creator that joined the party. You'll receive a royalty on any NFT I sell. The other fun part is that many celebrities joined. And third, you're super early to the party. Reserve your brand name now.

This is how you start, how to make your NFT and why BitClout might become the Bitcoin of content.

How to get started?

One of my main takeaways from being on BitClout for a week now is that when you become your own coin on a decentralized platform, you'll need to do your own marketing.

Brand this in your brain before you get started.

Imagine, you can start a completely new brand, a creative rebirth, as yourself, on BitClout. You also will have your own creators coin, apart from the DESO coin. You'll need all your other social media exposure and every single one of your email list tribe to support you on your new BitClout journey. (Or You're Tom Kuegler. I get back to him in a sec)

That's what I'm doing.

I decided to upgrade my best photo's to NFT's and really put work in them to make them shiny and stand out. Apart from that, I'll keep on writing new fresh content on the platform. Will you be my first NFT buyer and investor?

Bitclout is a decentralized mix between Medium and Twitter

Yes, that's its main objective, to become a decentralized mix of Medium and Twitter that also can bake NFT's. It's also referred to as a Influencer Stockmarket.

There are 2 ways; You stay on the main stage and use the 560 characters you have to bring your joy and wisdom into the world as Tim Denning does. You easily sign in to https://cloutpub.org with your BitClout account and you have all the space you need.

I'll get to the NFT creation part in a bit.

Of course, your accounts are connected, so you can link your blogs to the tweet section. Don't expect huge functionality here, you only can make your text bold or Italic or make an extra… break.

Hey guys, they just started. (although they did raise close to $100m)

That's why I get the early adapters shivers all over my body whenever I look at the interface. It feels cypher funky in a sexy libertarian way.

How to get started on a practical level? Read a great article by Clément Bourcart (google it) and come back to my next paragraph. That's where it's about to get really hot and steamy.

Mint your own NFT's in a sec

It only took me 2 days to discover, without any help, that creating my own NFT's on this platform is in fact easier than baking an egg. When you use the native website https://bitclout.com/ and you create your 560 character content, you'll find 3 dots in the upper right corner. When you press this you'll see an option to mint your content as NFT.

After selecting Mint NFT, this is the screen you'll get more options.

The choices you'll need to make now are; Are you baking a single edition, so one fan will be the owner, or do you allow multiple ownership? This will affect the price and of course, the uniqueness of your work. You don't need to put it on sale, but hey, you're an artist and here in this world to make money too. Now it gets even more interesting. Set your own royalty in the field creator royalty. When you sell only one piece, don't keep this on 5%! Your investors make their ROI by the stuff you sell. You can choose how much ROI, by selecting coin holder royalty. 10 to 15% feels fair to me.

Enable Unlockable Content: This means you can add an URL to your website in your work, or a link to an article, that now will be encrypted forever for your NFT purchasers. I decided to keep my artwork clean. For now.

When you import your artwork as a JPG, you can follow the same process. Et Voila, your first NFT is created just like that.

Are medium writers hopping over to Bitclout?

I discovered BitClout because some top writers on Medium started to brag about it. I also noticed that around the same time, Medium added the email followers functionality, finally making you as content creator own your follower's email list. And being able to bring them along to the next big thing.

Many centralized platforms are seeing the light.

They're carefully tipping their toes in decentralized waters. But it's way easier just to start decentralized than to bend your centralized CEO shareholders mindset to a decentralized cutting out the gatekeepers fee mentality. Tom Kuegler made a decentralized google doc to add your name when you tip your toe in the future of BitClout. There are 86 names on the list. In this article, he argues that this number is huge.

There are 2 reasons that stand out that I invest a lot of time and creative brain space into BitClout right now I love to be part of the future, the future is decentralized

BitClout finally dragged me into the world of NFT. I had some doubts since when everybody suddenly can become an artist, it's more about marketing your work than being original and having artistic genius. There's still too much get rich quick sentiment in the NFT universe, thus another bubble. But that's part of new tech being tested in the world and I do like the fact followers can now become investors. Kind of a 21st-century patronage system on a blockchain.

I got disappointed in older so-called decentralized platforms, they didn't keep me on board

Here's why.

Bitclout moves forward where older decentralized content platforms halted.

I just had a peek in my Minds account that's 2 years old, and the initial joy I had with this platform sank like a dying swan when I noticed the update option they integrated. For 40 bucks a month I can get my own website. No thank you, I'll use a free Wix template for that. 5 bucks a month for staying tuned to my followers? Are you freaking kiddin' me, and then you ask me to deliver content for free?

That's worse than Facebook in its early years.

These gatekeepers fees are very understandable when you're a company and offer a service, like Picfair for photo libraries or Upscribe for email services. But don't get in between my content and my followers when you call yourself decentralized. Or make me built up my followers, promote your brand, and then suddenly put a $5 gate? The rest of the world is doing the opposite at the moment.

BitClout doesn't cost you anything. In fact, They'll give you native DESO to get you started. The only reservation I have is this. I wouldn't like to be used as a content creator, with all of my social back-ups, to help raise the DESO coin and suddenly founders abort ship, start censoring or implement a gate. And, uh, did anybody check how to cash in on DESO already?

Last Words

There's something hot and sexy about going decentralized these days. Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, is looking into making his platform decentralized. That's understandable since decentralization is the future.

Jack won't make it, he's 12 years too late and banning a US president doesn't really feel libertarian, to be honest.

You better start neutral and learn from all the mistakes your predecessors made. Like BitClout does.

Also, momentum counts.

My gist is that BitClout is right on time. Also, NFT's are touching base in the real world, with marketplace Opensea reaching 1 billion in sales for august 2021 and VISA buying a crypto punk avatar for $150K NFT this morning.

Here you got it, Cypherpunk meets $$$. That's what NFT is in essence.

As I've shown you, BitClout is lowering the bar to get started. Decentralized used to mean 9 hurdles to get in and giving up at the 3rd. This platform has a super smooth and fast red carpet rolled out for you, handing over $20 when you check-in.

Lucien Lecarme

Follow my work on substack (https://lucienlecarme.substack.com) , and receive weekly free medicine to start living a more meaningful life