The first honoree of the weekly BitClout NFT coin is 🥁 @Sigil
How Sigil turned $150 into $250,000 in $BTCLT in 20 days by building a meme empire before founding @BitSwap
17 year-old Sigil was researching the DeFi, web 3.0 creator economy when he stumbled upon the BitClout white paper.
He was intrigued from the jump.
Following a workout, he saw a Clubhouse notification for the room I was hosting with @alecudell titled ‘Elon Musk Has a Coin?! BitClout is here!’ Sigil became immersed in the conversation. He shot me a text asking for the password to the BitClout website, which I sent his way.
He created his first account — @sigil — to get familiar with the platform. When his own coin reached $100, he decided to put $150 of bitcoin into the platform, starting with just over 1 $BITCLOUT.
Fascinated with BitClout, @sigil began experimenting with first principles thinking. He realized the bond curve follows a simple formula: the cheaper the coin, the more potential value there is.
This led him to realize there may be opportunity in owning multiple accounts. However, BitClout was requiring a phone number or $50 to register a username. So Sigil posted on his instagram story: “If you give me your number, I’ll uber eats you bubble tea.” Bubble tea was $10, which is a lot cheaper than paying $50 for each new account.
He started registering usernames, such as @dankmemes, some of the biggest subreddits and even niches like calisthenics or minecraft.
“I know a lot of people are coming on and viewing this for financial incentives, but there’s so much more to that. It’s a social media platform. You’re not just here for following celebrities, you’re here to have fun and invest in your own niches and interests.” -@Sigil
Sigil made sure not to impersonate others because the unethical short term gains were not part of his long term strategy.
He recorded a Loom video relaying foundational knowledge of BitClout as he onboarded new team members to his strategy. Sigil didn’t own all of these accounts. He would pay to set-up them up and then become their first investor, leaving his friends in charge to run them — impressive decentralized delegation. His team of more than 20 alliances operates over 100 accounts on the platform.
“Say BitClout hits 0.1% of twitter’s following base, imagine if we can get accounts running to follow for fun. Attention is the new currency. If we can create a content empire, that would be huge to capitalize on.” -@Sigil
Now that he had his content empire under way, Sigil turned his mindset toward providing even greater value to the community. One of the biggest concerns about BitClout has been its lack of liquidity. Sigil realized there was supply and demand to swap BitClout and Ethereum, so he started BitSwap. Previously, the only way to sell BitClout was through challenging human OTC markets — BitSwap leverages technology to automate the escrow process.
Sigil and his two 17 year old developers built BitSwap in six days. His thesis was validated when the BitSwap coin achieved a $1MM market cap in its first 12 hours on BitClout. I missed the chance to invest early as I was interviewing 3LAU for Clout:Hour when the coin first went live.
On Sunday night, BitSwap successfully conducted the first test transaction. How much was it for? “We’re kind of broke with Ethereum so we can only do trades of one,” said Sigil.
By Monday morning, Sigil and BitSwap were featured in New York Magazine.
From $150 to $250k in less than a month, while launching a valuable utility on the platform, Sigil is showing us daily that anyone can be successful on BitClout.
Will others forego college as Sigil has or even quit their jobs to pursue the BitClout dream? Whalesharkdotpro remarked earlier this week on the economics of what it will take to be a full time creator on the platform. Sigil shows us there’s no need to wait.
But it hasn’t all been pretty for Sigil. He released a 16 minute YouTube video revealing an extremely emotional experience he was working through with his parents. Tears flowed as his primal instincts shouted affirmations. He claims the inspiration for the video was the desire to be super transparent about the problems he uncovers.
“The mindset was that I couldn’t do it. But I just want to make this video to let everyone know that no matter how impossible it feels. Whether you think it is impossible to learn, or to speak or escape your comfort zone, that you can do it & I strive to help you.” -@Sigil cries out
Sigil believes daily life is about the progress and effort you take to get there.
He is accepting of everyone and wants you to know you can share your problems with him. We are early adopters and we can support each other.
We’re taught growing up that vulnerability is a sign of weakness, but Sigil reminds us that Gen Z has uncovered the truth of emotions — In Sigil’s own words, “Vulnerability and showing your insecurities is strength.”
It’s rare any individual can be so forward thinking, entrepreneurial, and energetic… Meanwhile a 17 year old. But sometimes our greatest strength is not what we know, but what we don’t. I refer to this innocence, and at times ignorance, as rookie smarts. Knowing too much can be capitulating, whereas knowing too little can propel us to taking risks we may have talked ourselves out of if we knew a little more. Sigil has rookie smarts in spades.
He’s magnanimous in his desire to create together. “I’ll dedicate my time no matter how much to help you. I strive in my life to help people like you,” he says in his YouTube video.
As for BitSwap, Sigil believes BitClout’s offramp to exchanges is further away than we may think because BitClout is not open source today. Looking at how long existing DeFi projects takes to get onto exchanges, Sigil thinks there is still time for him and the BitSwap team to capitalize. Regardless, him and his team of seven — they’ve grown by four since I started writing this piece — have moved into his bedroom at his parents house and are developing BitSwap as if the exchanges are only two weeks away from hosting BitClout.
Only time will tell, but regardless of whether BitClout hits exchanges anytime soon, or what the future of BitSwap holds, Sigil will continue to be a pioneer of our community and that’s why he is the first honoree of the weekly BitClout coin NFT award.
A general theme of Sigil’s experience is serendipity and how you can put yourself in a position to engineer your own luck. In his own words, “one text led to so much.” A reminder to all of us to always explore our curiosities and follow them wherever they may take us.
Stay tuned for next week! If you’re in the US, text me with nominations. If outside the US, my DM’s are open.
To hear more about Sigil’s story, check out BitsToday, who coincidentally wrote this piece about his rise as well.
If you happened to stumble across this article, and are interested in learning more about BitClout and the trends driving its growth, here’s an article I wrote about that.
