How to reach out to a Bitcoiner (Without Being Ignored)
Learn how to earn attention in an industry where time is scarcer than Bitcoin (...including a couple of communication hacks)
In the POW Lab, our members often tell us they’re not getting replies to their DMs.
It’s frustrating. It can make you feel ignored, dismissed — invisible.
But before you assume the worst, pause for a moment and consider the reality on the other side.
Anyone actively building in Bitcoin today lives inside a constant stream of noise: Slack pings. Telegram groups. Signal threads. Email. Nostr. LinkedIn requests that turn out to be bots, pitches, or scripts sprayed to a thousand people at once. Conference chats. DMs from strangers. DMs from bots pretending not to be strangers.
Every message that arrives is not just a message. It’s a task.
When you reach out to someone, you are adding yet another item to their already extensive to-do list. We all have limited time. And time is even more valuable than bitcoin.
So we allocate our attention carefully and prioritize.
How do we do that?
By level of relationship.
By status.
By “what’s in it for me?”
If you’re the other person’s boss, their most valuable client, or the love of their life — it’s highly likely you’ll get a fast response.
If your name is Michael Saylor or Jack Mallers — or some other well-known person in the space — you’ll probably also have a 99% response rate.
And if your message contains the answer to their prayers, same story.
But if you’re a stranger?
You land at the bottom.
That’s not arrogance on their part. It’s focus.
We’re all doing exactly the same thing in our own inboxes.
And there’s another thing to consider: these days, messages don’t just represent tasks. They increasingly represent risk. In our industry especially, phishing emails are daily occurrences and live deepfake calls are no longer science fiction. Every unknown message requires caution.
So the real question becomes:
How do you move up the priority list?
You have to earn people’s attention and trust.
Start building the relationship in public.
Build your proof of work.
Learn how to write more effective messages.
Before sending a DM, engage in the comments. Especially on LinkedIn. Add value. Not just “Great post!” but something thoughtful and relevant. Do it more than once. When your name appears consistently in a constructive way, it starts to feel familiar to the other person.
When someone has seen your name adding intelligent commentary a handful of times, you’re no longer a complete stranger. So when you eventually do send a private message, it will feel different.
Still — don’t send a DM with a request right away.
Send a compliment. Share a helpful piece of information. Send something that makes them smile.
💡 Tip:
Sometimes the most powerful line you can include is this:
“No reply needed, just sharing.”
It sounds simple, but it changes the entire dynamic.
It communicates:
I respect your time.
I know you’re busy.
I’m not assigning you work.
I don’t expect anything from you.
You may find this is a hack — because, ironically, that’s often what gets the reply.
💡 Here’s another one:
Send your message right before conferences and events.
If the other person is speaking at an event you’re attending, write to them ahead of time. Tell them you appreciated something specific they built or shared. Mention you’ll be at the same event and are looking forward to their talk. Don’t ask for a meeting. Don’t put pressure on them.
Very often you’ll get a response like: “Thanks! Stop by our booth and say hi.”
Now you’ve created context.
At the event, when you introduce yourself and refer to that message, you’re no longer a complete stranger. You’re someone who already made a small, respectful connection.
If you’re interested in collaborating with Bitvocation by sponsoring this newsletter, get in touch! You can see our views and engagement rates in the last section of our Annual Report here.
DM’s are like prompts
Communicate clearly. Make it effortless for the recipient. Treat your message like a prompt for an AI: if your input is bad, the output will be bad.
Make your intention clear in the subject line. If the recipient can see from the preview alone, that “this is just a 10-second task”, your odds of receiving a reply are going way up!
Most people genuinely like to help — especially if there’s already some form of connection. But you do need to make it easy for them.
If your message is vague, overly long, or requires heavy thinking before they even understand what you want, you’ll likely never hear back.
A confused mind always says no.
At Bitvocation, we see the other side of this every day.
We cannot reply to every single message on every single channel. We often receive messages along the lines of “I’m looking for a Bitcoin job. Do you have anything?” But we need to trust that if the sender found our contact form, they’ll also find our free job feeds (or the POW Lab, if they want us to know them personally).
We also get a lot of very vague applications for our BTX programme and had to make the decision to only respond to the clearest proposals.
Effective written communication is really important if you want to be the signal amongst the noise. You’ve got all the AI tools at your disposal for that. You can always ask “How can I say this in the shortest, kindest and most effective way?” before you hit Send.
So if you’re not getting replies, it’s not because you’re not good enough.
It’s because your industry reputation, your relationship with the recipient, or your written communication isn’t strong enough yet.
The solution isn’t more outreach. It’s visibility.
Comment. Publish. Contribute. Be visible.
Build relationships long before you need something from them.
When Bitvocation started, nobody knew us. Many people didn’t take us seriously. Now, two years in — after consistent proof of work and relationship building — things are shifting. We get more Yes’es when we reach out. And more people reach out to us first, because we’re on their radar.
We became visible.
We became findable.
Keep building your proof of work.
Keep refining your communication skills.
Stack contacts and connections like you’re stacking sats.
Low time preference wins in Bitcoin.
This article was inspired by conversations in the POW Lab Telegram group. Join us!