Short and to the point marketing plan for Bitshares
Introduction
Yesterday there was an animated discussion around the topic of marketing on Mumble. I wasn't able to be there for the whole discussion since I had to deal with something else simultaneously but it was great to know that people are interested in having a holistic approach to marketing.
As Fuzzy mentioned in an earlier episode of beyondbitcoin, I believe that having a multisig account and a worker's proposal to fund marketing development is vital. That way, we don't have to approve every single marketing move and we can simply have a marketing budget rolling.
How soon can we get this rolling?
Quick Move While We Build A More Holistic Plan
Yesterday, most people agreed that we shouldn't only focus on advertising and hope people join and invest in bitshares. There is a lot more to this puzzle than simply "spray and pray" with advertising dollars. We have to make sure people are on the troll box talking, build videos to teach people how to use the exchange better, be at conferences, etc.
BUT, while we build that holistic plan, I believe there are things we can start doing right now to get the ball rolling. Bitshares has many products and the the angles to market the platform are endless. But I do believe that if we can just get the exchange working, all the other products and business models will fall into place.
The product: The DEX - The Exchange On The Blockchain
The target market: Crytocurrency Traders
Problem that it solves: The Only Exchange Where You Control Your Private Keys. Fast, Fun & Secure
Why the DEX is the main product to market?
As outlined above, it's a product that is working right now. It's the flagship product of this community and it's working well. There is still improvements necessary in terms of liquidity, but most of them can be solved via more users and more trading bots. We seen an increased use recently and I believe it's good enough for someone who wants to join the future of cryptocurrency exchanges.
Why the cryptocurrency traders is the main market for the DEX?
They are the most likely to understand the jargon of the blockchain and also understand the mechanics of an exchange.
The Plan
Here is what I'm proposing for a plan of action:
- Build a landing page that we can A/B Test (Possible template: https://www.trading212.com)
- Run Ads on Coinmarketcap and other websites where cryptotraders hangout
- Run trading contests of $500 per week for the best market maker and/or other activities we want to promote on the exchange.
Conclusion
I would like to have your feedback on this plan. There is much more we have to think about and plan for beyond this tiny plan of attack. But this at least will get something out there that can be tracked and improved. With multiple A/B Testing we can figure out which headline or value proposition resonate the best with the cryptotrading community.
Defenitily a great progress
Good thoughts! The idea of trading competitions I also seem attractive. When I started to learn various aspects of trading, that such competitions helped me a lot.
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How is this proposal coming along?
I'm a big fan of the DEX, but the liquidity simply isn't there. I would love to do all of my trading exclusively in the BitShares Wallet or on Open Ledger. I simply can't because there's nothing to trade into because the spreads are too wide and volume is too low. The fees on the assets eat into each trade along with the mental hurdle of having to pay for each order and to cancel each order. I get that's it only fractions of a penny, but it still registers as pain in the brain whenever we have to pay for anything. Paying to just place an order, even if it's not filled, does not encourage people to be actively trading.
I get that it's a chicken/egg problem, but I'm just not sure if promoting the DEX alone in its current state makes the most sense. Maybe there's no other option at the moment.
What if we had a default view that kept things super, super simple. Just the top 5 crypto currencies in volume and that's it as the default view. Try to incentivize people to trade on the DEX for those assets. Push the "short the USD" approach to get the anti-fiat crowd involved.
I really like the weekly contest idea. Training videos on how to run your own bots would be great also, but without the volume, it's most likely people will just lose money, especially those getting into bot trading for the first time.
I hate to just come with negatives and not provide more positives, but it really is a hard problem. Those who have lost money on exchanges due to hacks and fraud understand how amazingly important it is to have an open, provably secure and fair exchange that is fully decentralized. Unfortunately, that's a very small percentage of an already small percentage of people who actually know what cryptocurrency is and trade it regularly.
Maybe it'll also just take time.
I've been involved in crypto since 2013 and never seriously looked into BitShares until recently and that's thanks mostly to Steemit. I had friends saying protoshares was great, but I just kept watching the price go down, and it all seemed too confusing to me. It's still quite confusing related to the worker proposals, the other products built on graphene that aren't part of BitShares and the other ones that are... it's a lot to learn. I just recently read the white paper, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around it all.
That said, people are starting to figure it out (myself included). I had a great call with a friend today who does work in countries that really need financial services. He knows aid won't help those who are struggling there and what they really need is an economy. He's trying to wrap his brain around how cryptocurrencies could help. The more I told him about BitShares and how it could give anyone in the world access to world-class financial tools, the more excited he got. We just have to keep getting the word out, one person at a time, while also listening to criticism and improving the product. I'm excited to see this thing unfold.
I agree with you that BitShares are not easy to undestand. That is not a "coin"
Looking at BitShares DEX with recent rise in price of BTS trade volumes at USD, CNY, EUR even GOLD and SILVER are all time high(chart setting all). Apparently strengtening of BTS brings more trades.
I would like to underline that looking back all the history of BitShares the most precious asset of BitShares was always it´s community and it seems to me very busy nowadays.
I hope the community will continue to grow and work on improvements.
I would love to hear your opinion on the Waves DEX.
Ya know, I just bought a bit of WAVES a couple days ago just so I could have some skin in the game and learn a bit more about it. I'm not sure yet, but when I get a chance to look into it more, I'll talk about it. :)
I feel the BitShares Dev Team and those who are doing the marketing put themselves into the shoes of the general person. What do the public want in a crypto and what will benefit them the most on a day to day basis? BitShares is FAST! Very FAST! it needs to focus on its daily use to the end user, point of sales and how it can be best adapted into every household, retail and other industries. Swipe cards, payment gateways, applications and POS systems for retailers and industry leaders that will entice end user adoption and uptake of the technology. The benefits of BitShares are there and in my opinion it is not the DEX. That is a bonus and still has a long way to go in regard to traffic and trading options. I feel we need to focus on the day to day transactions, savings, investments, lending, interests rates and determine how BitShares can be a leader in that area.
I am a fan of Bitshares, but have you seen Have you seen Bitconnect? It could be the next Unicorn coin of crypto.
I recommend combining Steemit with Bitconnect.
https://bitconnect.co/?ref=lasseehlers
https://steemit.com/bitconnect/@lasseehlers/bitconnect-mlm-cryptocurrency-lending-investing-mining-all-in-one-token-this-is-the-real-illuminati-spaceship-to-the-moon-i
Please also consider that we should promote it as an alternative way for the average person to save. A way to avoid bail-ins, to hold gold and silver without counterparty risk. Not everyone is interested in being a trader.
For that we would need to make sure liquidity is there on all of those assets + an app that is geared towards that market. But yes, I agree.
@cryptocopus
Hi, take my 2 cents :)