Bitcoin has been around for some time now. In a nutshell: it’s a currency that is generated by software which was created by humans. It consists of 0’s and 1’s and is only as valuable as people deem it to be.

Guess what! So are bugs! Hopefully, they weren’t generated on purpose though… but they can be extremely valuable as a currency. Treat the following as a heuristic, it won’t work in every project and in some contexts it might even be hazardous.
It’s usually better to report bugs in a dry, clear manner while keeping the stakeholders feelings in mind. It’s important that you don’t antagonize anyone on your team, for that will impact your testing for the worse.

Sometimes, however… There’s moments and situations in which it is helpful that you have a certain power to influence the bug-flow. Either by increasing the priority, describing the bug more clearly so it gets picked up earlier, having someone implement a quick fix as a favor… There’s a ton of ways to influence this bugaboo and people might benefit from it. Sometimes you find your pockets bulge with BugCoin. Whilst pondering on this concept I found that I have:

• Bartered bugs as salesware on a market in order to adhere to contracts;
• Have complex bugs fixed fast as a powerplay show to prove effectiveness;
• Pinned high amounts of bugs on a wall to show problematic quality;
• Used bugs to get buy-in with stakeholders.

Most of the times, the easiest way to show added value as a tester is by finding important defects fast. There are cases where your insistent searching is dismissed as it being “just-your-job”.
Showing a handful of BugCoin can sway many people, just make sure they know its value. In my currenct context, this is how we get things done. Today I spent a few hours searching for a mysterious bug for the accounting department. I’ll make sure they’ll know where that coin came from. 😉 I’m sure this will come in handy sooner or later.