[Bitcoin-development] Some PR preparation

Alan Reiner etotheipi at gmail.com
Tue Mar 12 07:03:54 UTC 2013


I'm sure it won't be long before Slashdot and a variety of sources start
reporting on this event.  Bitcoin has been in the media a lot lately, so
this story is likely to get some attention.  The blowback of this event
is mostly psychological, so I think it would be exceptionally wise to
start preparing PR comments that can be posted on articles immediately
after they go public.  This event is likely draw much more negative
attention than it deserves, and getting some positive&informed comments
posted up front will potentially make a difference in the way the story
is received. 

Undoubtedly, many articles (and especially commenters) will shape this
into "the end of Bitcoin".   I would describe it as "there was a short
and mostly-harmless lapse in the ability of the network to reach a
consensus, causing transactions to get delayed by a few hours."   It
*really* needs to be emphasized that coins are safe, and nothing anyone
has/could do will change that.  And that it would've been extremely
difficult to exploit for gain.  Transactions got delayed while a bug was
fixed.  End of story.

Hell, someone here should submit their own slashdot article about it! 
100% chance this hits slashdot -- it might as well be written by someone
who understands it.  Similarly, we could be sending sources information
to pre-empt misinformation being spread about it.  Unfortunately, I have
to go to bed, so I can't really do much.  I just wanted folks to be on
the lookout and be ready to respond to the crazy stuff that's going to
hit the media in the next 12 hours.

-Alan




More information about the bitcoin-dev mailing list