Memo review: A bulletin board for the Bitcoin blockchain

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The Bitcoin SV (BSV) blockchain, much like the Internet, always needs a place where you can find hot topics of discussion and quality posts from relevant figures in the industry. Memo SV has been that place since the beginning of Bitcoin SV (BSV), helping to create a community for the Bitcoin world and a way for users to be rewarded for their content.

As Memo’s founder Jason Chavannes told us in February 2019, Memo was designed to be the Bulletin board of the Bitcoin world. It accomplishes that goal quite well, with all of the features you’d expect. And what’s great for a new user is that it introduces you immediately to a “Getting Started” page, which lays out many of the things you’ll want to do starting out.

For example, you can quickly jump in to either the Top Posts or Hottest posts of the moment. You can also quickly find some of the most active or most followed users; a list that includes notable BSV figures like Dr. Craig Wright and Money Button’s founder Ryan X Charles.

Visiting a user’s profile page also gives you very quickly the most pertinent details about that person. Besides what you’d typically expect, like a profile picture and an activity feed, it also offers the ability to filter their activity and view what type of posts they’re liking or rewarding.

Rewarding? Yes, Memo offers the ability to tip quality posts that you enjoy with small amounts of BSV. That drives users to want to create quality content that others will enjoy and reward.

Creating new posts also requires a bit of BSV, protecting against trolls from flooding the service. They don’t cost very much: a fraction of a penny, or 1000 Satoshis, best we could tell. But that’s enough to keep most of the junk out.

It also allows for Topics, which become the threads of conversation between the communities of Memo. Some of the more popular conversations currently going on cover topics like U.S. politics, BSV, and even inspiring threads like Favorite Quotes.

The service isn’t without its flaws though. The first time we logged in for this review, the top post was about how the content of Memo had gone downhill, filled with advertisers shilling for air drops. Dig a bit deeper, and the content becomes a little alarming: The U.S. politics topic is filled with conspiracy theories about secret modern day American Nazis, and another top thread is regarding the merits of Flat Earth theory.

That’s not a good sign of healthy discussion happening on Memo, but the structure is there for something so good. For those of us who grew up with message boards as the only real form of social media on the internet, Memo harkens back to those days and gives a sense of a possible community that can be built around good content.

If it can find the right people to start the right conversations, you can get a thriving community going, rewarding the best content creators on the blockchain.