SLASHDOT EFFECT

In the summer of 2010, version 0.3 of the Bitcoin codebase was nearing completion and a number of community members began coordinating a publicity push. Up until then, Bitcoin had merited just a single mention on external media when it featured in an InfoWorld feature on “open source innovations” in May.

In June, Bitcointalk forum user “teppy” – who had recently integrated BTC into his game “A Tale in the Desert” – suggested trying to get Slashdot to cover the upcoming release. The social news website that billed itself as “News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters” was hugely influential at the time, so much so that the term “slashdotting” was used to describe a torrent of traffic from a Slashdot feature.

Martti Malmi (“sirius”) enthusiastically agreed with teppy’s proposal and devised a mini-campaign timed with the new release of Bitcoin that would include posting on forums, IRC, social media, and even using Google Ads to maximise impact. “Slashdot with its millions of tech-savvy readers would be awesome, perhaps the best imaginable! I just hope the server can stand getting ‘slashdotted’,” wrote sirius. Bitcoin’s tiny developer team even considered upgrading the website’s servers in case traffic spiked.

Bitcoin Goes Viral

The campaign was planned with military precision, showing an unusual degree of coordination among Bitcoin’s normally happy-go-lucky community. Once Bitcoin v0.3 was released to testers, forum members prepared a polished story to submit to Slashdot with Satoshi weighing in on its wording.

He urged the team not to overhype Bitcoin as “anonymous” or “energy-backed,” cautioning that those terms were misleading. He also objected to language implying Bitcoin was “outside the reach of any government,” saying: “I am definitely not making any such taunt or assertion.” The event is significant in revealing Satoshi’s awareness of how the world might interpret – or rather misinterpret – Bitcoin.

His exchange signed off with another now famous Satoshi phrase which some analysts have taken as evidence of his “Britishisms”: “Writing a description for this thing for general audiences is bloody hard. There’s nothing to relate it to.”

By the end of the thread, its participants had a concise and comprehensible Bitcoin blurb ready to go, with Satoshi’s approval on the final phrasing. They crossed their fingers and prayed that Slashdot would find the story compelling enough to publish.

On July 11th, 2010 their perseverance was vindicated when the front page of Slashdot proclaimed “Bitcoin Releases Version 0.3.” The impact was immediate. Slashdot’s tech-savvy readers numbered in the millions and many clicked through out of curiosity. Martti Malmi later recalled sitting at his dorm-room desk “giddy” that Bitcoin was finally getting the spotlight. It was validation for the small band of early believers who had waited patiently for mainstream attention to manifest.

Rob Malda (“CmdrTaco”), the former editor-in-chief of Slashdot, claims that Bitcoin was “one of the more interesting stories” he covered during his 14 years with the company. “Bitcoin represented a technological solution to monetary policy issues laid bare during the financial crisis,” he recounts. “To my eyes, it echoed how the internet itself was a tech solution for decentralizing communication that eventually re-shaped humanity.

“I felt it would be unethical for me to own or mine coins myself, yet as Slashdot covered the value of bitcoin go from pennies to pizzas to dollars, I was always furiously accused of covering crypto to enrich myself, but my stupid morals wouldn't allow it.”

Despite the influx of traffic the Slashdot feature generated, the Bitcoin website’s servers held up – but the price of bitcoin was to prove more volatile. Within days of the feature going live, the number of Bitcoin client downloads jumped from around 3,000 to 20,000, and within a week the price of Bitcoin had jumped 10x.

Bitcoin was no longer an esoteric secret – it was public knowledge and now the public wanted a piece. The Slashdot effect was real.