Where can Coil go?
What can we achieve with it?
Can I get to the movies to see Avengers before some jackass on the internet spoils it for me?
These are the questions on my mind the past few days, and I am going to answer those questions. I saw Avengers last night. (The 17 minute CGI fight scene with Stan Lee and Thanos initially felt forced, but it surprisingly worked.) It was incredible. If you didn’t like it, we’ll have hard time being friends, and if you spoil it for others, we definitely can’t be friends. Which is a huge loss for you, because I just bought a case of diamond filtered tequila that I won’t share.
Now, where can Coil go?
I have an annoyingly idealistic and vague answer. Coil will go wherever the Community takes it. Whenever anyone discusses Coil, they talk about content creators. They talk about artist, bloggers, Youtubers, Twitch streamers, yet I see almost no mention of charity. Now, I love the content creators. I am a child of the internet. Hell, right now I have a Youtube video running in the background of my laptop while streaming Hulu on my tv. My wife is lying next to me scrolling through Instagram. We start shaking and verbally threatening each other if we don’t have some form of entertainment at all moments of our waking hours (Millenials, right?).
What can we achieve with it?
For this post we’re going to talk charity. Let’s talk about how the Coil community can do some good. (Especially after all the debauchery you’ve taken part in. You know what I’m talking about, and you should be ashamed of yourself.) I thought I would have to beg some charities to consider Coil. Well, the community has surprised me yet again. The first week has not even passed since I formed the Coil Community, and I already have three charitable initiatives that asked to have their sites posted to the master list. I love it. We’re going to dive into two of them here. The third is not quite up and running yet, but I’ll be doing follow-up pieces on new charitable initiatives every so often.
(Note, the Q&As that follow were not actual Q&As. I took everything directly from the contributor’s website and formed my own questions for cheap laughs).
Q: What are we trying to accomplish?
A: Raise funds to support the garden education curriculum, the garden team, and the Community Guild at large using only digital assets. THE ULTIMATE GOAL IS TO RAISE ENOUGH FUNDS TO PROVIDE SALARY FOR A HALF-TIME GARDEN TEAM COORDINATOR AS A SPECIALTY PROGRAM TEACHER WITHIN THE SCHOOL DISTRICT.
Q: Alright, no need to shout. What else are we going for?
A: Proof of concept - Digital Asset Donations: Currently, the Community Guild fundraising arm does not accept digital assets in their donation platform, excluding a massive donor base with a growing influence in charitable giving. By providing desperately needed equipment and materials directly to the garden team with digital asset donations, at least initially, I hope to convince the 501c3 to adopt a rapidly growing sector in the giving world.
Q: Neat. In my experience, charities are painfully close-minded when it comes to crypto. I was outright ignored by one about a year ago when I called them. (Just like my father!) So, what exactly is your goal beyond raising money here?
A: Promote Digital Asset Education, Utilization, and Adoption: Like many new technological innovations, digital assets and distributed ledger tech face major blockades to widespread adoption mostly based on misinformation or complete lack of information period. By educating students, staff, faculty, administrators, and parents about the potential benefits of this emerging payment and value transfer system and providing immediate direct benefits on the ground, I hope this project has a large impact on multiple levels.
Well, thank you for taking the time to have a fake conversation with me. I love the idea of educating the next generation. When I was a little kid, people were laughing at the idea of email, now look at us. I can work for an entire week without ever once seeing or speaking to another human being (Living the dream.) This initiative is a perfect example of a way us Coil users can make a real impact. This is a wonderful, local initiative. They are not looking for a million dollars here to tackle a seemingly unsolvable problem. We can all spend a couple minutes reading through the site and make a difference in that local community. This is the kind of thing the Coil Community was built for!
The next one is actually a lot of fun. I’m excited about it!
Q: Tell me a little bit about your website?
A: Enter your e-mail to win. If you win nominate a charity. You will both receive 50 XRP via xrptipbot.com which has the same login credentials as Twitter. Don't know what XRP is? Head to the FAQ.
Q: I know what XRP is. I mean, I’m on the XRP Community Blog. Kind of an odd statem-
A: Can't see the form below? Click here
Q: OK, I feel like you are not actually trying to have a conversa-
A: Add to your address book to avoid missing a winning email (especially if you are on BitBounce)
This has been a weird fake interview.
In all seriousness though, the XRP Lottery is a fun concept we can all get behind. I actually had a real conversation with the site creator below.
Q: Tell me a little about yourself and what inspired you to do this?
A: I am a teacher in the UK of pupils with additional needs aged 11-16, and I’ll be honest I have always been obsessed with being rich. I honestly couldn’t tell you why (Really...does anyone on here need an explanation as to why someone wants to be rich). One night me and my wife were watching the Pride of Britain awards which is a program in the UK which celebrates good deeds / brave acts and commends them. This bloke in his seventies was on there for raising over 70 million pounds during his life to help fight cancer after his daughter succumbed to the disease in her thirties. Watching that man and his acceptance speech really affected me, and I thought it would be much more incredible to raise money for people than to lead a hedonistic lifestyle. I’ve been a hodler of XRP since early 2017 and really believe in what they are trying to do, and I value to community that is building around it. I really like Wandering Ware’s tree project and Wietse Wind who was very kind in letting me bounce some ideas off him when I began my project.
Q: Seriously, I’m not even going to say something funny here. Anyone who can teach at need children is the exact type of person the world needs. Tell me about the lottery?
A: The idea is that a person enters, nominates a charity, and if they are selected both the individual and the charity win. Hopefully this way charities may become more aware of XRP, and even if they don’t claim the XRP from their XRP Tip Bot account, they may in the future when XRP is worth a lot more. What a nice surprise that’ll be for them!
Q: Yes, the day when 50 XRP is worth $29,450 dollars (USD) will be a great day for us all. (Shutup, I know what it is worth right now. A man can dream.) What charities have the winners already selected?
A: So far we have donated to Street Vet UK, UNICEF, WE Movement and The Wounded Warriors Project.
Q: Seriously, that is amazing. One last question. Tell me your goals. Where do you hope to take this thing?
A: Ultimately, if I can monetize the site (Note, the site is Coil enabled already), I’d love to be giving away huge prizes that make a difference to individuals and their nominated charities. The site isn’t perfect and has a long way to go, but even if it stays small then at least I’ve learnt a few new skills and essentially gave some XRP to charity. Throughout this I’ve realized that I have a family that I am very lucky to have and don’t worry about putting food on the table or turning the heating on; a lot of people would pay a fortune for that.
Q: Well, we are 100% behind you in the Coil Community.
For real, this guy is great! This speaks to something that I want to echo as well. I may do a little bit of self-depreciating humor here. I made a comment about me being poor in my last blog post. Truthfully, I’m not poor. I, like my friend above, am very fortunate. I have a loving family, a good job, and I don’t wonder where my next meal is coming from (Sometimes the scale tells me it should be a little harder for me to find food though). I think a lot of us have this kind of wealth. We might not be driving lambos or flying private jets, but many reading this have stability in their lives. Most know that if you get a little hungry, the fridge down the hall has food. Most have a little money to go out to eat if they forget to grocery shop. Most can afford to pay for basic utilities. To me, it is a sobering thought to know that people within my own community go to sleep on the pavement. There are children who go to school and rely on the generosity of others to eat a good meal. This is reality for many, many people across the globe. With Coil, we can make an impact. Sites like the ones above can become the example for how web monetization can influence change beyond our wildest imaginations.
I want to leave you with this thought. If I walked into your house (please don’t call the police.) and asked you to scrape some change from your couch. I told you the change would feed a hungry child minutes away from where you live. Would you do it?
I’m sure the answer is yes. With Coil, it is even easier than that.
If you have not already, please consider subscribing to Coil. There is plenty of great content to support, and you can feel good by spending a little time on charitable sites. I’m confident the list of content and the list of charities will continue to grow as this community grows.
-VengefulSeven (I know I said I would do weekly blog posts, but I was far too excited to sit on this one.)
Also, starting to get the hang of this Twitter thing! Tweet me @SevenVengeful and we can talk about whatever people talk about on Twitter.
Find the Coil Community posts at r/CoilCommunity.
