Talking about BSV
How much of the network a product should show, when to name it as Bitcoin SV or BSV, how to write a store listing and a landing page, and the copy that loses people.
Say what your product does for the person in front of you, and name the network only where they need it to avoid a mistake. For most products that means BSV is visible at the moment money moves and nearly invisible everywhere else.
Choose a point on the expression scale
The guide's expression scale runs from bitcoin as the point of the product to bitcoin as plumbing the interface never mentions. A self-custody wallet sits near one end; a shop's till sits near the other.
Do
Choose your product's point on the expression scale before writing the store listing, the landing page or the onboarding, and check all three against that point before release.
Do
Place the product by who it is for. If your primary user would describe the product without the word bitcoin, keep the network in the background.
When to name it
Even plumbing has to be named in a few places. A user moving money between wallets, funding from an exchange or pasting an address needs to know which network they are on, because money sent to an address on another network is usually gone. See Naming the network.
Do
Name the network as "Bitcoin SV" or "BSV" wherever a user adds money, takes it out, or pastes an address, even in a product that names it nowhere else.
Don't
Name the network on screens where it changes nothing the user does. On a "Read for about 1p (20 sats)" button, the network is plumbing.
Do
In interface strings, write "Bitcoin SV" or "BSV". Never write "bitcoin" alone on a screen, a button or a store listing, where a user can read it as another network.
Store listing and landing page
The store listing is the first screen a user sees, and the guide's advice on discovery is to describe it for someone who does not know what BSV is. The landing page has the same reader, one step further along: aware, interested, and looking for the catch. See Usage life cycle.
Do
Open the landing page with what the user gets, in one sentence they could repeat: "Read any article for about a penny, without an account."
Do
Include an honest line about what the product is not good for, such as holding savings in a connected wallet. It answers the catch the reader is looking for.
Do
Put the network name and how payment works in a short section below the fold, for the readers who want it, rather than in the headline.
Value in the user's terms
The guide ranks what motivates people: something cheaper, something that works where the current thing does not, being paid fully and at once, and not handing over personal data. Ideology comes last. See Getting to know your users.
Do
Write each value statement as an outcome with a number or a concrete detail: "Paid while the customer is still at the till", "No account, no card, no email address".
Don't
Describe the product with words the user has to look up: on-chain, non-custodial, peer-to-peer, the Metanet. If a term needs the glossary, it does not belong in a headline.
What not to do
Don't
Campaign for the network in product copy. Users came for the product, and advocacy beside their balance makes their money feel political.
Don't
Mention the price of BSV, past gains or future value anywhere in marketing for a product that is not about investing. Copy that reads as a promise of returns attracts the wrong users and alarms the right ones.
Don't
Sell the product by comparing it with another network. Say what yours does and let it be judged on that.
Promising returns also has legal consequences in most places, and that needs advice for your jurisdiction.
Open questions
- Does naming BSV on a landing page help or hurt with people whose only picture of digital money comes from news about scams? The guide's barrier list suggests caution, and nobody has tested it.
- Should "Bitcoin SV" or "BSV" be the first form a newcomer meets? The guide prefers "Bitcoin SV" where there is room; whether newcomers find either one reassuring is unknown.
Related
- Visual language: the expression scale and the imagery to avoid
- Amounts and units
- First use
- Getting to know your users
- Pay-per-use reader: a product that names the network only when a reader has no wallet to pay with
Written from: /guide/getting-started/visual-language/, /guide/patterns/amounts-and-units/, /guide/daily-spending-wallet/first-use/, /guide/designing-products/getting-to-know-your-users/, /guide/designing-products/usage-life-cycle/, /guide/contribute/content-guidelines/.
Checklist
The rules on this page, in a form you can work through.
13 rules