What the Fork?

Are you creating bitcoin-only content in your native language? Is your thing called “twentyone” in whatever language you are speaking? Congratulations, you have a twentyone fork!

(If you choose a different name, that’s cool too.)

But seriously, we want to encourage you to copy the concept that worked for us and modify it to your needs. In other words: to fork it.

The Motivation

Many countries still lack bitcoin-only content that is available in their native languages, as well as bitcoin-only communities that are regional and free of shitcoinery.

Germany was such a country as recently as 2018, which is why we launched EINUNDZWANZIG, a German bitcoin-only podcast that evolved into … I don’t know what, exactly—a community, a media power-house, a bitcoiner love-fest, a non-profit, and a million different side-projects—but it definitely evolved into something pretty awesome, something that is worth spreading.

The Name

Twentyone, translated into your language: einundzwanzig, yirmibir, dvadeset jedan, [veinteuno], njëzet e një, douăzeci și unu, huszonegy, ventuno, dwadzieścia jeden, tjugoett, είκοσι ένα, vingt-et-un, and so on. If the name translates to “twentyone” the country will be colored orange.

The Concept

Team Up: find another bitcoiner.
Create a Beacon: localized, bitcoin-only, high signal.¹
Provide a Space: a chat group or similar.²
Translate Content: articles, books, etc.³
Be consistent: stick with it for 21 weeks.

In short: provide localized, high-quality, bitcoin-only content and create a space for bitcoiners in your country to connect, collaborate, and exchange ideas.

Everything else will grow organically from there. At least that’s what happened in our case. We are still blown away by the response we got and keep getting, which is why we are open-sourcing the concept that worked for us. Feel free to fork the logo and the name, by the way.

The Logo

Find some inspiration and all required assets here.

The Translations

Localized content is absolutely paramount. Not everyone is fluent in English, and Bitcoin is complicated enough as it is.

Find a list of articles to translate.

The Trick

There isn’t one trick. There are three:

Do something public, something that scales.
Be consistent. Whatever you do, stick with it.
DON’T TRY TO DO EVERYTHING ON YOUR OWN!

Re (1): I believe that a weekly or bi-weekly podcast is perfect in terms of scalability. It isn’t that much work to produce, and it is something that can be easily found, easily consumed, and scales almost indefinitely. Other formats, such as a newsletter, probably work well too. But it’s hard to beat the in-person character of a podcast. Find another bitcoiner and just shoot the shit or discuss the news for an hour every week.

Re (2): This is probably the hardest part, but consistency is key. Whatever you do, stick with it for a couple of months. You will be surprised how many bitcoiners are waiting in the shadows, just waiting to discover your beacon.

Re (3): I can’t stress this enough, so I’ll go all caps once more: DON’T TRY TO DO EVERYTHING ON YOUR OWN. Really. Just don’t. Involve at least another person. Think of it as your gym buddy: there will be times when you’re not feeling it, and your gym buddy will be there for you to motivate you and give you a kick in the butt. Seriously, go find a bitcoiner that speaks your language and start as a team straight away. This should go without saying, but since bitcoin is for enemies, I’ll say it out loud anyway: it should be someone that you like.

Once you’re 21 weeks in—probably earlier—other people will find you, and by the love of Satoshi, they will probably be happy to get involved too. That’s one of the side-effects of the orange pill: it makes people want to do bitcoin stuff.

TL;DR: Find quality people, and trust that something great will emerge through self-organization and spontaneous order.

The Community

Bitcoin is different things to different people. Every country, every community, every family, and every individual has different wants and needs and a different understanding of what Bitcoin is and what it might be in the future.

Consequently, we have a saying: “Twentyone is what you make of it.”

Different folks will want to work on or emphasize different things, and that’s perfectly fine. Let them, and more importantly: encourage them!

The Meme

For us, this was a weekly podcast ↩
For us, this was the Telegram community chat. ↩
For us, this was the Bitcoin Standard and many other bitcoin resources. The guys from Aprycot Media helped a ton. ↩

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