Fellow Nxters,
1. Many of you guys myself and my buddy Leon Fu as early investors of NXT. In addition to Marc De Mesel, we have made the most NXT videos online to help promote NXT since it first came out. We even went to the 1st Texas Bitcoin Conference to spread the word about NXT. In addition, myself and Damelon and others in the NXT community to help organize and start the NXT Foundation so we can help promote NXT. Due to my father in law's open heart surgery which consumed all my time and resources, I had to resign from the NXT Foundation. However, I still followed NXT behind the scenes.
2. I have not made any videos about NXT during it's decline in the crypto community because I had no solution to fix the decline in NXT. However, the recent successes of Ethereum, Auger, Lisk, etc. and talk of NXT 2.0 has prompted Leon Fu and I (with input from our friend James D'Angelo from the World Bitcoin Network) to come up with these 10 Keys To Success in reinventing NXT.
3. We are calling this proposal "The Madonna Solution" because we believe that NXT needs to reinvent itself in order to avoid extinction. Here is our proposal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGRUERF2FHk
Let me know your thoughts guys...
Enjoy
Tai Zen
Great video, and good suggestions too!
I disagree we need a new ICO though, I think we just need to push the idea that every NXT bought now entitles the buyer to fNXT after 2.0 launch. We could even do the same as what LISK did and create a NXT 2.0 branded 'IPO' page that uses shapeshift as the backend so people can buy fNXT with any crypto they like. We could even add a small fee that went into a dev fund.
Obviously people more familiar with crypto would realise they could just buy NXT at a regular exchange, but there's nothing stopping us creating the IPO 'vibe' like LISK did with such success. Obviously the price for a NXT 2.0 IPO isn't fixed, but with the right marketing it would be easy to push the idea that NXT is going to rise in price as fNXT and 2.0 plans become more widely known, so there's an early bird discount of sorts.
As for marketing, I think there are only two really interesting people to come out of the crypto scene so far, Satoshi and BCNext. There's lots of other cool people for sure, but nobody can compete with the mystique and understated charisma of what they did, and how they did it, and given that Satoshi has a million bitcoins (supposedly) and BCNext walked away with nothing, BCNext is a far more intriguing figure in many ways.
NXT has always lacked a front man like Andresen, or Andreas Antonopolous, or Vitalek Buterin, but a new marketing effort could still use BCNext as a front man of sorts to grab some attention. Obviously he can't appear at conferences, but others could talk about him and what his values were, and what his actions meant for decentralisation and open source development.
Most people know very little about Che Guevara but his image still became a cultural icon and a powerful symbol about 'values', and after he was dead. The 'anonymous' face mask is the same.

When I think of BCNext I imagine an idealistic eccentric genius, but also a realist "A world with the money can not be perfect". By giving away his NXT creation without making any money himself he did something really quite amazing, and unique compared to every other alt coin. The NXT IPO was a Black Swan event, and despite the envy problem from other crypto early adopters, it's a great story, and end users of crypto products and services wont care. Do regular people not use a product or service because of concern over the wealth of founders and early investors? History of Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Air BnB etc suggests NO!
I also love that BCNet purposely set out to raise 21 bitoins exactly in the IPO as a homage to Satoshi and the 21M bitcoins, that's a nice touch, and shows his respect to Satoshi.
BCNext is a great marketing asset, and we need to start using him asap.
BCNext was about the "WHY" of crypto currency (make the world a bit better), not just the 'What' and 'How'. Someone posted this video in the iOTA thread and it made me think about how much activity in the cryptospere appears to be about money, and technical achievements, and 'ego', and fame even, but BCNext seems to have had absolutely no interest in any of those things, and that's really interesting, and inspiring, and I think we should honor that, (and cynically use it to pump fNXT to da moon lol). Seriously, BCNext is marketing gold, and we don't need to pay him haha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sioZd3AxmnE
I agree that Satoshi is a genius. As for BCNext, he is nobody and outside NXT no body cares or even knows who he is.
He will never go down in the history of crypto as anybody. I even forgot who he was until recently when I had to review my notes to make this video.
Millions of dollars went into marketing bitcoin and ethereum to make it the #1 & #2 crypto on the market today. The idea that NXT can reach that type of exposure for free without marketing and development funding is just wishful thinking.
Tai Zen
I think you're probably right Tai, but that makes me a little sad that what BCNext created, and how he gave it away means very little. IMO we only have the internet and the WWW because the people who invented the tech (tcp/ip, http) were community minded in how they distributed their inventions. The services on top like Google, YouTube and Facebook can make money because the tech underneath them was free and open to develop.
You're right though, we live in a world where marketing moves mountains. We all know Apple exploits cheap labor in the third world, and Steve Jobs in person was probably a pretty awful guy to work for (and even be related to), yet the world reacted to his death like Princess Diana 2.0 ... that was weird!. I guess the reason is they had great user friendly products, and Apple marketing was simple and brilliant most of the time, and that's what NXT needs now. I think the killer product we have is the asset exchange, and later the child chains from 2.0.
I also think changing the name would be a mistake. I always say 'en x tee', so if we need a new name for legal reasons, why not 'ENXTEE', or 'enXtee'? Just don't say 'next' anymore, say the three letters. I agree Madonna is a good example of someone successfully re-inventing themselves, but she didn't change her name, or disown her past, she evolved. When Prince changed his name to that symbol thingy he lost something, that's why afaik he's back to 'Prince' again.