= 1000 Monero donation
{scope}
On 2024-03-18, <Ciro Santilli> received an anonymous 1000 <Monero> donation (worth ~126k USD at the time) to his self-custody wallet, which pushed him over his public plea for 100k USD goal to quit his job for one year.
The transaction ID was https://xmrscan.org/tx/5c6af4df39021f3a4a053ef169c9b397e6d6bf6c7e557d3f08e4e1675d7d3eed[`5c6af4df39021f3a4a053ef169c9b397e6d6bf6c7e557d3f08e4e1675d7d3eed`] to self hist custody wallet with address `47kzoCeRMTohJhADejtsGmGimvQKzNsuST7u2aVhAD1VX5WDbh3v1FPUoJoTK3NTJVUgAM3dWCqC4Tmp9KSQaJi6GGYWgYn`. This is a roof generated by his Monero wallet: `InProofV2AVFBmFhofH4GoG5NsaDutkdNWRTaEhuFgHpHTkpprRmuZ54B8FdUwFp71gqfp2jJpDUrhB3GCzZ2p8CNbh2TW1Z88ShmYWEwtkZFLccEMw9PhH3vWcMVo9mKaRsH3WgJXqq9`.
Since this donation is so huge, it deserves some comments and a bit of a retrospective. The path to this donation has been an interactive one, and it is described below.
After starting the <OurBigBook Project>, Ciro started the <sponsor> page on <cirosantilli.com> and setup some donation methods to help support the project, and possibly try to capitalize a bit on <Ciro Santilli's Stack Overflow contributions>.
His sponsors are absolutely crazy amazing people, but Ciro simply could attract a large enough amount of small sponsors to reach life changing amounts under those circumstances. This is partly due to <video And I am not and never have been 'familiar' scene from The Big Short (2015)>.
As such, Ciro came to realize more and more that the best approach would be to reach out to a smaller number of rich people, given that the things he works on niche, but may appeal to a particularly wealthy tranche of the population: <STEM> people. Other experiences and ideas that contribute to this realization are:
* the creation of the https://docs.ourbigbook.com/#ourbigbook-com-fellowship[OurBigBook Fellowship], which as of writing consisted of a single donation. During this exercise, <Ciro Santilli> gave about 2k USD to help a promising Brazilian student. In doing so, he understood a lot about what goes on inside a "rich person's" head when considering a donation
* it is hard to decide who to donate to and find those people. In part because as soon as you create a public donation system with an application process, people will game the fuck out of it. Perhaps the <Lost Horse LLC> approach of "they find you" is the best?
* it is basically impossible to donate more than 1% of your net worth if you have a family. Even 1% you may be discouraged about. Perhaps with reason due to previous bad donations they have made.
* the increasing <wealth inequality> of this world, perhaps one of the greatest problems we now face
Then, whenever a larger donation would come through and surprise Ciro, he would improve his sponsor page statements. First a private 150 USD by an awesome sponsor. Then the 2023-09 ~810\$ <Bitcoin> one. Finally came the 2023-11-20 100 Monero one. And it was that one that pushed Ciro to start his "100k USD = 1 year campaign".
Finally on 2024-03-13, Ciro received an anonymous 10 <Monero> donation to self-custody wallet. He had clearly stated that one should make a test donation to that wallet before the big one, so 10 Monero felt like it could be the test one. Ciro communicated the reception at: https://mastodon.social/@cirosantilli/112112988286298258[] and https://twitter.com/cirosantilli/status/1769464788009066710[]:
> I cashed out 10 XMR on @<AgoraDesk> for ~1,375 USD, and kept some change in the wallet for fun. This donation confirms that my self-hosted wallet and cash-out work just fine, so feel free to drop those millions whenever you want Mr. Anon :-)
Over the next few days, Ciro checked his wallet more often than his previously self imposed once a weekend max, and as expected, he found the big one on a slightly despaired around midnight sleepless night (partly due to parenthood). He was feeling particularly bored and a bit sad with his work life that night. And there it was. 1000 Monero on the wallet. Needless to say, not much sleep was done on that evening!!!
\Video[https://youtu.be/2jZpXOFz1pw]
{title=1000 <Monero> donation (~126,000 USD) reaction video by <Ciro Santilli>}
\Image[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cirosantilli/media/master/Ciro_Santilli_s_Monero_reaction_video_still_on_2024-03-19.jpg]
{title=Still of the reaction video after finding out about the big donation around about midnight}
{height=700}
{source=https://youtu.be/2jZpXOFz1pw}
\Image[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cirosantilli/media/master/Ciro_Santilli_s_Monero_wallet_after_1000_Monero_donation_on_2024-03-19.png]
{title=Screenshot of <Ciro Santilli>'s Monero wallet with 1000 Monero in it just after the donation}
{border}
{height=800}
The following days were also tense, with Ciro having a trial by fire on selling large amounts of <Monero> on the UK, which is not trivial as it had been banned from all major exchanges. But he managed. Further notes on that at: https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/17arz9f/converting_xmr_to_gbp_in_the_uk/[]. Ciro also decided to keep about 200 Monero around just for fun as a crazy moonshot.
Another major factor likely Ciro having published his article: <Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain>{full} in 2019. This is something he wrote entirely for fun during an intense 3 week side-time binge in 2019, though some large updates were made later on. It was this article that likely some crypto-dude attention to <Ciro Santilli>'s profile. As of 2024, there is said to be about 20 crypto billionaires, so perhaps there are about 2000 crypto 10 millionaireshttps://www.fastcompany.com/90949038/bitcoin-price-billionaires-list-crypto-wealth-2023{ref}, which is the minimum net worth for a donation of 100k USD to be feasible (1% mark). And perhaps a reasonable number of them are just nerds who got rich, and want to improve the world. There are two lessons from this:
* follow your instincts, always. If something seems mega fun and quick, do it!
* making money from a few rich people (or entities like organizations) is easier than working for a bunch of poor people, because you have to convince less people. If you reach many poor people however, things are much more stable as you can lose a few customers and still be fine
Another factor in the donation, <Ciro Santilli> believes, is that many rich people thing that education is bullshit. <Many successful people are neurodiverse> and as such, it is only natural that a large number of rich people want to improve our educational system, which tends to be the very epitome of "boring and average normality" which <Ciro Santilli> so much detests. This can also be seen in people such as:
* <Michael J. Saylor> and his <Saylor Academy>
* <Peter Thiel> and his <Thiel Fellowship>
Announcements:
* pre-announcement before everything was clearly documented online:
* https://twitter.com/cirosantilli
* main announcement
* https://twitter.com/cirosantilli/status/1774004147114688852
* https://mastodon.social/@cirosantilli/112183905519726278
* https://www.facebook.com/cirosantilli/posts/pfbid0NwC7ugyN4wbqonR1RZX6AZy2e6wBzSACeXL25khpSdWbxSLzyRjaJNxPX9D9MWJyl (link only)
Amazing reactions from the <Monero> <Reddit> community: https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/1brryao/ciro_santilli_received_a_1000_xmr_donation_to/
* `geonic_` comments:
> Reaction video is fake. Very bad acting.
* `Inaeipathy` comments:
> Well, anyways, I would be very unsurprised if this 1000 XMR was sent to him by himself for... reasons.
* `-TrustyDwarf-` comments:
> Anyone mind to explain wtf this ugly piece of webpage reminding me of geocities from the 90s is about? I'd read it myself but I can't because it already gave me eye cancer.
* `rbrunner7` comments:
> It's all quite strange. Never mind the 90s design, people built good websites already back then with the tools at hand, but even their "About" isn't very clear. If you need 5 minutes to be reasonably sure what it is all about they are still doing it wrong.
These people have some serious trust issues!!! Perhaps not surprising from a <privacy coin> community. Ciro's Twitter post: https://twitter.com/cirosantilli/status/1775961945193017790
\Image[https://web.archive.org/web/20240118181009im_/https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/770/306/493]
{title=It's a role given to me by the Internet people}
{source=https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/its-a-role-given-to-me-by-the-internet-people}
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