2018 Trends Report: Bitcoin
2018 Trends Report: Bitcoin
Written by: Sky King
Photo by Andre Francois on Unsplash
What it is:
Bitcoin… We have all heard of it, but what does it mean? To some an anonymous currency, to others a liberation from the clutches of inflation, to the opportunist it is a speculative investment, to modern macroeconomic theory it is an experiment destined to fail. Within our society there is a massive inequality in the awareness to understanding ratio of bitcoin. I will do my best to explain what it is, as simply as possible. To start out there is Bitcoin and there is the bitcoin protocol.
Bitcoin
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, which is a digital asset that is designed to function as a currency. In bitcoins case it functions both as a medium of exchange and a store of value. Said simply, you can trade bitcoin for goods and services (Canada’s KFC) and if you would have purchased 5 bitcoin in 2010 for $.003 it would have held that value and then some (Bitcoin Price Today) over time. The most important part of Bitcoin is that it functions on a decentralized network known as the blockchain. Decentralized… wtf is that? As I assume you are about to click off of this boring blog please follow click to this link with Silicon Valley’s (The HBO show not the snobby part of the bay area) very own Richard Hendricks to give you a general understanding of the meaning of decentralized.
Hey, you there? Awesome welcome back. Hopefully, that gave you a little flavor into the meaning and importance of a decentralized network and in this case a decentralized market. To put it in real terms the only thing that gives the $$$$$$ you have, or let’s be honest, don’t have in your wallet today, value is the centralized authority of the US government. So with bitcoin instead of the government determining the value of your $$$ through macroeconomic tools, you have the market decide the value. There is a fixed amount of coin, it cannot be inflated away, but it can be divided infinitely. Bitcoin is awarded when miners (those who run hardware to confirm the ledger - the non-fungible, non-changeable, non-destructible transcript of all the transactions that have happened on the block chain) fulfill their purpose.
Where it is on the Adoption Lifecycle?
This is an extremely difficult one to place. I have seen estimates ranging from 3 million to 15 million users of the technology. For most products/movements etc, I would say that these numbers put you in the early majority, especially when considering the US population. Bitcoin makes it difficult because it is inherently global, it is a borderless, nationless currency and will probably have its greatest functional (not just speculative) success in countries with national instability, cheap electricity and large populations. Considering the global population, I will put Bitcoin in the Early Adopters segment.
Why is this important for marketers?
EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT IT and it has surpassed the point of hype. James Altucher, sold his book, Choose Yourself in a bitcoin only store. What this did for his product, is get a ton of free publicity. Everyone was already talking about Bitcoin, establishment was saying you couldn’t buy anything with them and this guy comes along and only accepts bitcoin as the legal tender. KFC Canada, previously mentioned above, has been all over the news because they started accepting bitcoin. When people learn about someone actually using this “fake” digital currency as a real medium of exchange it sets their mind on fire. It makes them go a little deeper into their curiosity about your product and emboldens bitcoin in their mind. I became to understand this strategy as “Newsjacking” and as Ryan Holiday (Author, and one of the brightest strategic marketing minds today), says in his book Perennial Seller:
"Trends and popular themes are also powerful forces to piggyback on. A broader definition of 'newsjacking' would then be: when people and the media are all talking about a certain topic, insert yourself into that conversation by connecting what you do with what they’re already talking about."
If you are a marketer or entrepreneur integrating into Bitcoin or developing your own cryptocurrency will not only catapult onto a trend, but as Bitcoin is being recognized more and more as the global market that it is, you will launch into the future.