Here's one way to market a coin

[calian]

I'm no fan of litecoin. I see it as a bunch of horse and buggy owners building their own roads so they can keep using their favorite method of transportation as the world moves on to cars. Nonetheless that fontas has a silver tongue. Read along as he lays out his gameplan to take full advantage of the listing of LTC on mtgox.

http://forum.litecoin.net/index.php/topic,4698.0.html

I'm going to quote it here as they are editing it and some are concerned that if gox sees the plan they will take evasive action. I've bolded the part where he contrasts PPC's un-pumped entry into a market with another coin he previously boosted.

[LTC IPO]: Litecoin's Pre-Gox Plan
Contents
I. Introduction
II. Implications of Gox Support
III. Effects of Pumps
IV. The Plan: LTC IPO
   a) Investor Interest
   b) The Pump
   c) Blockchain Manipulation
V. Information and Contact


I. Introduction


I am Fontas. You may know me from the BTC-e chatbox, where I organized many pumps of alt coins through twitter (@fontase) during the months of April and May. I brought TRC 1400% up, DVC 600% up, NMC 730% up, NVC permanently 50% up, and contributed to the LTC rise of April 1. Playing with small market cap alt coins was fun and profitable, but there is a much more ambitious opportunity awaiting on the horizon: LTC.

I am not looking for a quick pump n dump of LTC. Instead, this will be a coordinated effort to put LTC in the spotlight for good, legitimize the coin, and generate interest in its potential as a serious competitor to BTC and one of the leading tools in digital commerce.

We all know what will happen when Gox supports LTC: Price will rise immensely and more investors and developers become interested. This project serves to amplify the effect.

========================================================

II. Implications of Gox Support


Gox has announced an estimated July date for LTC support.

LTC will be open to the gigantic Gox orderbooks, the wire transfer market, the investors with millions of dollars and thousands of BTC. Those famous $1M buy walls on MtGox would have easy access to the LTC market.

On the day of the IPO, LTC will rise simply from the buy support of users that come from BTC-e. But realize that the BTC-e market is tiny compared to Gox, which has approximately 10x the BTC trading volume. The current LTC $300 000 buy orderbook on BTC-e can be matched 1:1 by a single whale on Gox. There is potential for a massive LTC price spike on the day of the IPO above $5, potentially above $10, and even $25 is feasible.

That would not mean much if Gox quietly adds LTC with a "News update: LTC added.pdf" in their news section. The Gox crowd and the rest of the world would stand around with their hands in their pockets and their eyes fixed on the old BTC as if nothing big had happened. The goal is to get investors interested in the coin, and potentially see it as an investment as valid as Bitcoin.

The goal is to have an incredible rise that noone could have imagined, in the style of April 1, 2013. In the short run there will be a media frenzy. Perhaps some will gain, others will lose. In the long run, the interest in LTC and subsequent startups and projects will further develop internet commerce with LTC in the foreground.

========================================================

III. Effects of Pumps


Remember the day of the TRC and PPC IPO on BTC-e? April 4th 2013. There was a TRC pump through twitter (@fontase) to coincide with the BTC-e support of the coin. The effect of the hype was enormous, and TRC rose from a pre-pump low of 0.0008 on Vircurex to a high of 0.017 on BTC-e. That's a rise of 21.25x from bottom to top, a gain of 2025%. Verify it with these links:

http://www.cryptocoincharts.info/period-charts.php?period=3-months&resolution=day&pair=trc-btc&market=vircurex
http://www.cryptocoincharts.info/period-charts.php?period=3-months&resolution=day&pair=trc-btc&market=btc-e

In contrast, PPC, which IPO'd on the same day. Without a pump and hype campaign, it rose on its own from a low of 0.0011 to a high of 0.00349. While a rise of 3.17x is still very respectable, the effect of a hype campaign and pump for TRC resulted in a rise nearly an order of magnitude more violent.

The effects of the TRC IPO pump were felt for months, and TRC remained in the general price range high above PPC. The 3 day TRC pump plot, which I spent just 400 BTC on, resulted in the creation of hundreds of thousands of dollars of market cap.

The same can be done with LTC. If there is no pre-IPO pump, LTC will rise to perhaps $7 and top out, just like PPC. If there is indeed a pump, LTC could rise as much as TRC, reaching comfortably into the double digits. Interest in the coin would explode, bringing new talent and investment.

========================================================

IV. The Plan: LTC IPO


To accomplish this, we need a coordinated effort. My market power alone cannot simply move a $50M market cap coin.

There are three parts to the plan.

IV. 1) Investor Interest

First, we need to make sure the LTC engine is running full steam on the days leading up to the IPO. Investors and institutions need to have LTC on their watchlists. They have seen BTC bubble from $1 to $32 in the span of 2 months. They have seen BTC grow from $13 to $266 in 4 months. They know the potential of cryptocurrencies in general, and will not want to miss the next train coming around. But they won't hop on board if they don't know about it.

To do this, we can contact cryptocurrency podcasts to talk about the implications of Gox supporting LTC, local news stations (finance section), newspapers (the Guardian has recently published an article on LTC), youtube channels, Bitcointalk forums (speculation boards), and Bitcoin/Crypto meetups. If Bloomberg and Forbes (Jon Matonis in particular http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/) cover Litecoin, it will be huge. The focus is to detail exactly why LTC is either equal to or superior to BTC (Scrypt security, faster confirmation times, very active development team), and its potential to be used in everyday digital transactions.

IV. 2) The Pump

Second, the orderbook and price chart need to match the discussions regarding the coin's potential. That means there will be a massive LTC pump happening on the days leading up to the IPO, similar to the TRC ramp up.

For a coin with the market cap of LTC, an analysis of trading volume during past rallies indicates that around $780 000 is necessary for each dollar of temporary rise, and $0.35 of permanent rise. 
That is, for each $780 000 of market power, LTC will spike up another $1 and its long term bottom will be $0.35 higher.

I will be dedicating my cold storage BTC to this effort, for I know the positive effect it would have on my LTC holdings.

This operation is very delicate, as all it takes is one large LTC holder to place a six figure sell wall and cripple the rally. Assuming all large LTC holders are rational, this would never happen, as they would be selling LTC for considerably less than the potential market price. However it remains a possibility, for us humans are not always rational.

If any of you large LTC holders would like to accumulate more, place your sell wall now and accumulate it. Please do not interfere with the pump. If you do decide to hold through the rally, you will be indirectly helping out by effectively limiting the available supply. Thanks.

IV. 3) Blockchain Manipulation

Third, which may be the most difficult to coordinate, blockchain manipulation through miner participation. Leading up to the IPO, turn on all mining machines and GPUs to maximize the difficulty. During the first two days of the IPO, turn mining machines away from LTC. Mine FTC, NVC, or another scrypt based coin. With the high difficulty and low network hashrate, blocks will not be solved. That means when LTC holders try to transfer LTC to Gox to sell, it will take hours before the confirmations come in. As a result, a large amount of LTC is stuck in limbo, on the way to the Gox wallet but unconfirmed by the lagging blockchain. Gox will have no LTC to dump and plenty of investors looking to buy: a recipe for price explosion. Price on BTC-e would follow obediently, similar to what happened to the Vircurex price when TRC made its debut on BTC-e.

It would be in the interest of all miners to mine another coin for 2 days to maximize the size of the initial LTC spike when it hits Gox, ensuring a higher long term LTC value and increased mining profit for months to come.

========================================================

V. Information and Contact


This operation is currently in the planning stages, for Gox has not released the exact date and time of LTC support, or what markets will be available. Currently I estimate a late July or early August launch, with two markets: LTC/BTC and LTC/USD.

As more information comes around, I will update the plan accordingly and discuss the plan with large holders of both BTC and LTC through and BTC-e PM (fontas). IRC will be set up in about 2 days.

The IPO is still a month away. There is plenty of time to get everything rolling.

[Excelsior]

Wow. This guy acted like a 10 year old in the chatbox and now this? I don't even know what to think. A wild west manipulative environment like this will surely attract speculative money and attention (when such gaming works), but maybe scare away entities contemplating building companies to support such currencies for mainstream folks.

Well, you can't stop people from exploiting areas of opportunity. In the end it might just be the sifting of the sands that's expected from something so new involving money. The shakeout needed maybe, for it to eventually stabilize better, later.

I'm all for ppc to rise in price and visibility. Absolutely. But such things as fontas does totally unnerves me. Even if completely legal.


P.S. Thank you calian for posting this.

[d5000]

I have taken screenshots of Fontas' original plan and will send them to Gox if the Litecoin community does not reject energically this get-rich-quick scheme. "Plans" like this could damage cryptocurrencies as a whole.

[calian]

I have taken screenshots of Fontas' original plan and will send them to Gox if the Litecoin community does not reject energically this get-rich-quick scheme. "Plans" like this could damage cryptocurrencies as a whole.

I don't really get the impression that gox is all that opposed to market manipulation, at least if it serves to benefit the value of BTC. Witness the trading timeouts following major market moves, the relatively low $10,000 and $50,000 withdrawal limits for verified accounts and most recently the suspension of USD withdrawals. Adding additional cryptos to their mix tends to muddy the waters a bit as to how they'll react.

[Sunny King]

I don't really get the impression that gox is all that opposed to market manipulation, at least if it serves to benefit the value of BTC. Witness the trading timeouts following major market moves, the relatively low $10,000 and $50,000 withdrawal limits for verified accounts and most recently the suspension of USD withdrawals. Adding additional cryptos to their mix tends to muddy the waters a bit as to how they'll react.

Hmm is gox financial still in good order? Any news on how much of its assets got frozen by US authorities?

[calian]

There have rumors about their financial stability for a long time. I think the biggest risk was always hacking thefts though I'm sure they had many thousand in Dwolla too. This article just came out in the WSJ though I don't have a subscription. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323873904578574000957464468.html

To read without a sub go to http://news.google.com and search for Bitcoin Exchange Makes Apparent Move to Play by U.S. Money-Laundering Rules

A company listed as Mt. Gox this week registered as a money services business with the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, according to FinCen's website.

Hopefully this was the reason behind the two week suspension and hopefully it gets them back up and rolling.

[D3tail]

I don't really get the impression that gox is all that opposed to market manipulation, at least if it serves to benefit the value of BTC. Witness the trading timeouts following major market moves, the relatively low $10,000 and $50,000 withdrawal limits for verified accounts and most recently the suspension of USD withdrawals. Adding additional cryptos to their mix tends to muddy the waters a bit as to how they'll react.

Hmm is gox financial still in good order? Any news on how much of its assets got frozen by US authorities?

They just registered as a MSB which is good news for Gox. They have been approved, I'm assuming this means they are in good standing.  But I'm not 100%.