AN EXTREMELY UNSERIOUS INTERNET EXPERIMENT
You have a penny.
I have a terrible
business plan.
What if everyone on Earth sent me one cent?
There’s only one very silly way to find out.
One time. Entirely optional. Absolutely no world-changing promises.
Questionable ambition.↙
THE PENNY JAR
$0.00
Collected so far, toward $80,000,000
0 payments · $80,000,000.00 to go
0.0000000000% of $80,000,000
Counts confirmed payments only. Fee covers are listed separately. See every entry ↗
THE MATH IS GOOD. THE PLAN IS DEBATABLE.
Eight billion people.
One cent each.
Eighty million dollars.
Yes, that’s the math. No, that’s not a forecast.
I’m Chris. I bought a domain, did some multiplication, and decided the internet deserved a spectacularly small ask.
There is no product. No secret cause. No promise of returns. Just a voluntary contribution to me, and a public experiment in how far a penny can travel.
The honest fine print ↓*Hypothetical gross total using a rounded population of 8 billion (the real figure is about 8.2 billion, which only makes the plan worse). Before fees, refunds, taxes, and the obvious problem of reaching everyone. Full math ↗
FOR THE OVERACHIEVERS
Feeling a hundred
times more ridiculous?
You can choose to send $1, $10, or more. That’s 100 pennies, 1,000 pennies, or a lot of pennies from you.
It does not count as that many people. We can still do math.
FIELD NOTES / 001
They stopped making pennies.
I started collecting them.
Office Space had the right denomination. I’m trying a different approach.
Read the origin story ↗Fair questions.
Honest answers.
Wait. Does the money just go to you?
Yes. To Chris, the person behind this experiment. This is a voluntary personal contribution, not a charitable fundraiser or an investment. You receive no financial return.
Can I really send exactly one penny?
Yes, with one honest catch. Card networks will not move less than 50 cents, and PayPal takes about 49 cents plus a percentage per payment. So the 1¢ option asks you to add the fee: 49 cents by card, 59 cents by PayPal. Your penny counts as one penny. The fee cover is listed separately and never counted toward the goal.
Why are there $1 and $10 options?
For overachievers. A dollar is 100 pennies and the fee is small by comparison. Your amount is always shown before you pay, and the counter counts it as that many pennies, not that many people.
Can I send crypto?
Yes. Pick Crypto in the chooser for Bitcoin and Ethereum addresses. Crypto gifts are checked and logged by hand within a day at the dollar value when they arrive.
Will you charge me again?
No recurring contributions are planned. One time means one time.
What if I don’t want to send money?
Then don’t. Enjoy the joke, share the link if you like, and keep your penny. Participation is optional.
Is this counter real?
Yes. It only moves when a payment is confirmed by the processor, and every entry is listed on the ledger with its time, method and amount, and nothing about who sent it. Payment count is not a count of unique humans.