Leave it to a dating app to demonstrate the instant success

a creative social media marketing approach can bring to a new business. Tinder — the location-based dating service that facilitates matchups between interested parties — used a tactic best described as word-of-mouth advertising in a digital format To successfully launch its app.

In a recent podcast, Tinder co-founder and CEO Sean Rad revealed that the company grew by 50 percent the day after it tested 500 individuals a link to its app. That tactic and other word-of-mouth campaigns grew Tinder's customer base from 20,000 to 500,000 users in less than a month. Clearly, entrepreneurs hoping to quickly reach and grow their own customer bases must embrace social media in all its forms. Social media's free word-of-mouth nature can attract and engage potential customers at a stage in the company's development when advertising budgets are often tight and expenses must be carefully monitored. When building a new business, attracting customers is imperative — and social media is a leading pathway to gathering and retaining loyal consumers.

Reach out and touch your customers.

Consumers love to be engaged, equipped and empowered, Kimberly Whitler, a marketing professor at the University of Virginia, has said. This makes them feel important, as though they have a vested interest in the company. Consumers crave two-way interactions and are flattered to offer reviews of a company's products or services. Why should this matter to a small entrepreneur? Because every customer reached is a potential repeat customer who will tell others about a positive experience. When a startup adopts social media marketing tactics that truly engage its customers, the benefits are plentiful: The company likely will grow its customer base while spending less money on marketing, leaving more funds available to invest in higher salaries for employees and other areas of the business.

Social media marketing done right also helps businesses stay top of mind among their followers. Consumers will recall engaging content, helpful advice or a humorous post. According to MarketingLand, consumers don't want to be lectured or bombarded with ads. Good vibes toward the company result in trust, long-term loyalty, and a positive bottom line.Nielsen reports that 92 percent of global consumers identify earned media as their favorite form of advertising, primarily in the form of recommendations from friends and acquaintances. Those customers trust companies that connect with them in genuine, captivating ways; and they want to establish relationships with them.

Shake up strategies to push the marketing status quo

So, how can entrepreneurs change their marketing strategies to create connections with customers and pack a more social punch? Here are four tactics to try:

Register accounts on all major platforms.

According to Hootsuite, social media can no longer be brushed aside. A business won't succeed without active accounts across several platforms. If social media's word-of-mouth power is not utilized, the chances for promoting a business are largely lost. Get started with accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more to meet customers where they are. Even companies without a product to sell benefit from engaging on social media. Magic Leap, a private company that is developing a futuristic augmented/virtual reality system, has created interactive content to whet users' appetites for the impact its future product could have on their daily lives. Despite its lack of any imminent product launch announcement to date, the company has still generated about 60,000 likes on Facebook and has attracted 32,000 Twitter followers.

Harness the power of community.

Reach out to consumers — and let them reach out to you and to one another — using social media in order to successfully build community and benefit from positive word of mouth. Yelp, which publishes crowdsourced reviews of products and services, shows how powerful positive reviews can be. If a customer likes the service or food at a new restaurant in town, a good Yelp review will encourage even more customers to flock to the startup's table. Encouraging customers to leave a positively verified review, perhaps through offering a coupon or discount on future services, can help draw in new customers.

Consider for example the case of Uncle Maddio's Pizza. I came across the family-owned pizza joint while traveling with my son's baseball team. Our hungry team searched restaurant reviews on Yelp and found positive comments about Uncle Maddio's. As promised, the food was excellent, the service was top-notch and the staff was personable. Before we left, I learned that a franchise location would soon open in my hometown. The owners started a Facebook page for the new location and promoted "spirit nights" that would raise money for schools and youth organizations. Needless to say, when the new store opened, I took my family there and have returned many times to eat and to support fundraisers there. Positive online and word-of-mouth reviews have led this small business to success.

Associate with other businesses that share similar mindsets.

Strive to connect to businesses that are working toward the same type of high-quality customer experiences you are. Good business practice dictates being tied in with others that have strong search-engine rankings and website presences. Interact with them online, and share each other's content across your social platforms. Many online marketers, such as Neil Patel of Kissmetrics — whom I've turned to for advice on my SEO projects — say posts on social media accounts influence Google and Bing search rankings. Search engine rankings aim to provide users the best possible resources to help them make purchasing decisions and acquire information. These accounts can affect the business's reputation and authority just as easily as they promote the business.

Employ someone who knows how to use social media effectively.

Hire someone who thoroughly knows social media — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and beyond. This person should be able to moderate comments, post daily messages and answer inquiries. Give this person guidance on what your business is trying to accomplish and a list of what's acceptable to post. His or her goal should be to keep customers informed and engaged in a timely manner. A good social media team can take a business to global heights. Holly Clarke, a marketing manager at Airbnb, says the company has team members in San Francisco, France, Germany and the U.K., along with translators tailoring posts to other areas of the world. Airbnb's #NightAt and #BelongAnywhere campaigns draw in consumers from across the globe to interact with its content.

Entrepreneurs have a lot to think about when starting new businesses, but the use of social media should be a no-brainer. Creative social media marketing tactics, with an emphasis on free word-of-mouth advertising, enable a startup to quickly grow its customer base. Long-term relationships and two-way interactions with those customers will soon follow. Make sure you and your business are creating those interactions, as well.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor
Please click either Link to Learn more about Inbound Marketing.

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

Santander is trying to redefine online banking through social media

  Santander is trying to redefine online banking through social media

The social media strategy at Santander UK isn’t concerned with fan growth or sharing a quirky promotional post. Instead, the focus is on understanding how people might bank or use chatbots on social networks that command more of their time online.

Likes, retweets, and followers might be the gauge of a successful social media campaign to some marketers but for Keith Moor they are unnecessary. To Santander UK’s chief marketing officer, success is more about what are the experiences people are having within a particular channel and “much less about fan growth”. Teens now spend up to nine hours a day on social platforms, according to Global Web Index, while 30% of all time spent online is now allocated to social media interaction. So, if a person is more likely to be on Facebook when they need to check their account, then Santander wants to be the bank that lets them do that.

It “really won’t be just about social channels being places where people go to do ‘social stuff’,” says Moor of why this shift is so important for the bank. “They’re living their lives through those platforms and so we need to be in those places too,” he continues. “Why would someone bother coming out of an app when they can do most of their stuff within the app experience. We need to be part of that ecosystem.”

How Santander does this is still being mapped out and Moor admits there will be mistakes along the way. However, with social media budgets on the up at the bank thanks to redirected funds from print, the senior marketer wants the medium to play a bigger role in driving customer loyalty. Customer growth “isn’t really a primary focus” for the financial firm, which is why Moor won’t splash the cash on promotional posts and big social media campaigns to raise awareness. Rather, he sees Santander’s money going on chatbots, social banking and other services that could fit seamlessly into the way people behave on social networks.

Social media is not a promotional strategy at Santander, it’s about understanding what ‘punters’ want online

Whether someone is transferring money, paying a credit card bill or voicing their frustrations about certain services, knowing what features to offer customers and where requires more than just a bigger budget. It’s why Moor has recruited more people into the team to work on social media. Over time, he envisages a team bereft of social media experts for one where the responsibility for it is shared by all his marketers. By that same notion, he argues that the agencies he works with will have to treat the medium as a standard part of what they offer. “I want the agencies I’m working with – my main strategic partners – to have social baked into the heart of what they’re doing,” he demands. “And so that’s why in the teams that we have at Engine as well as Dentsu and Carat, the social infrastructure is part of the main team and isn’t a little bit on the side”.

Compliance, security, and privacy will be top of mind for both brand and agencies’ attempt to balance the need to protect people’s money with making them feel more empowered. Moor hints at the scale of the challenge ahead when talking about why Santander has been coy to move into mobile messaging. The rewards of having such a personalized dialogue with a customer are clear but so too is the security risk should the correct policies not be in place.

There’s “not much opportunity to use them [mobile messaging apps] now,” admits Moor. “Having said that we do have to find a way to exist on platforms like WhatsApp. The problem for us is the security angle, for banks that’s a big red herring. Many of the apps have a two-stage identification process and we need a bit more security than perhaps if someone were to buy a coat for example. People are very conscious of being secure with their money. It’s a fundamental part of what people like to keep private so we have to weight that up against people’s desire to do things in a more convenient manner.”

Changes on this scale will inevitably mean Santander ‘in-houses’ more of what it once briefed out to agencies. Yet, Moor is adamant this will help both brand and agency for the better even though some observers might argue it’s merely a chance to shave further costs amidst downward pressure on marketing budgets.

“My [marketing] budget hasn’t grown over the last few years if anything it’s gone down like most marketers’ budgets have,” admits Moor. Effectively, Santander only does “TV advertising, digital and social” now, he continues. The reason “why [social media] gets more money is because we can prove that the engagement levels are versus other channels and opportunities where perhaps you’re perceiving that a lot of people are getting our messages but maybe they’re not and you can’t tell which ones and which ones aren’t,” he continues.

As true as it might be that Santander can show the effectiveness of social media, it is still a way from knowing the real value of its efforts on the likes of Facebook and Twitter. Traditional media equivalency measures won’t cut it moving forward, explains Moor, who believes it will come down to untangling the reams of data he says social platforms will share. Santander is getting to the point “where we need to understand the real value of doing something [on social media], he adds. “It’s no good, for argument's sake, going ‘I can get reach easily on here versus over there’. That doesn’t really matter. What I need to know is do my customers like me more? Do they feel happier with us? And do they want to stay longer as a result of the interactions they’re having.

Moor didn’t offer much more as to how this will be achieved, in part because the business is still getting its head around measurement. Sales won’t be an indicator because banks “are never going to see a massive growth in sales directly off channels”. The promise of better measurement becomes all the more important amid the advent of so-called ‘open banking’, whereby banks will have to share data that they have historically held. The rationale behind the Open Banking Standard is that the customer experience should improve as a result of the data being used to build better applications and resources. Moor agrees, though admits there will be challenges ahead.

The challenge of customer loyalty in the era of Open Banking

"I think open banking and its philosophy makes it all the more important that you have a strong relationship with the customer so that you’re front of mind when they’re thinking about finance,” he adds. "And actually the more that you can work within the places where they’re living their lives than the more they’ll see that as being a good thing. I think banks almost have to let go a little bit to keep growing that trust."

Any progress Santander does make over the next year will have something to do with its partnership with social media management platform Sprinklr. A deal between brand and marketing tech platform was brokered after the former set up social command center several years ago. Since then it has gone on to form the backbone of its customer experience management plan. The setup means Moor and his team can access data on the fly, whether that’s brand health checks as well as unearthing potential reputational or operational risks. Such is the importance of the union that Moor views the data as the “key to unlocking everything”. The “next stage of the journey”, he continues, is how the bank develops “customer experiences through the social platforms”.

Beyond social media, the senior marketer offered a glimpse into the bank’s wider strategy. While it’s common for marketers to wax lyrical about the trials and tribulations of navigating a tricky media supply chain in the wake of the landmark speech from Procter & Gamble’s top marketer Marc Pritchard, Moor was campaigning for similar standards before it becomes the industry du jour. So much so that he worked with the bank’s lead media strategist Daniel Creed to create the role several years ago and the two have been worked in tandem to introduce everything from whitelists to their own viewability standards.

“We didn’t go to the agency and say ‘stick with these rules’, we sat down with them and we asked ‘what kind of rules can we set ourselves to feel confident,” Moor adds. “It’s one of the reasons why we still appear on Google’s platforms [despite the brand boycott of YouTube]. We’re not an advertiser who has withdrawn from those platforms. We’ve adjusted our spend so we can be sure we’re being safe but I’m not a great believer in pulling things off and threatening people with a big stick.”

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor
Please click either Link to Learn more about Inbound Marketing.

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

Zimbabwe derby sparks
social media rows
  The Highlanders-Dynamos fixture has a history of crowd trouble

Officials argue at Barbourfields stadium

Football fans disagreeing with the referee's decisions is nothing new. But supporters making it impossible for the referee to do his job is something else. Zimbabwean football fans have taken to social media to vent their spleen following the abandonment of the country's biggest derby on Sunday. There was plenty of confusion and a smattering of anger when the Premier League match between Highlanders and Dynamos, the most famous and successful clubs, was called off just before the break.

The match commissioner took the decision with the score at 1-1 as he feared for the safety of one of the assistant referees at a packed Barbourfields Stadium in Bulawayo. In yet another incident that raised questions on issues of crowd control, Highlanders fans furious with the Dynamos equalizer hurled abuse and started throwing objects at assistant referee Thomas Kusosa, accusing him of allowing an "off side" goal to stand. Disturbances went on for an hour as fans and Highlanders players demanded that the assistant referee be replaced.

"I guess that we should have accepted that the referee has the final say, but we are a mixed multitude, and not all of our supporters will accept such a decision," said Highlanders chairman Modern Ngwenya.Football fans have been arguing on social media about the abandoned game. Zimbabwe's biggest derby has a history of crowd trouble but anti-violence banners at the stadium and pleas before the match for supporters to remain calm were of little benefit. Eddie Chivero, the president of the Zimbabwe Soccer Supporters Association, feels that CCTV cameras are needed to monitor and identify troublemakers.

"We condemn violence in our football, but there is no way that we are going to identify the culprits unless we have CCTV cameras in our stadiums," said Chivero. "It's supposed to be priority number one, and stadiums without CCTV should not be allowed to host matches. None of Zimbabwe's stadiums has cameras in the stands, and the authorities are unlikely to make it happen for a while.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor
Please click either Link to Learn more about Inbound Marketing.

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

Are You Maximizing The Use Of Video In Your Content Marketing Strategy?

Chief strategy officer and partner at Raindrop. We believe in the power of human connections and helping our clients build relationships. Did you know that more video content is uploaded to the internet in a single month than network television has produced in three decades? The world of content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) might be complex and constantly evolving, but one thing is certain: Video continues to be a big driver of traffic. How can you use video to strengthen your content marketing strategy and SEO?

  

Leverage The World’s Second Largest Search Engine:
YouTube

YouTube is not simply a website; it is a search engine. YouTube’s user-friendliness, combined with the soaring popularity of video content, has made it the second largest search engine behind Google. With 3 billion searches per month, YouTube’s search volume is larger than that of Bing, Yahoo, AOL, and Ask.com combined. If YouTube’s user base were a country, it would be the third largest in the world. Since Google owns YouTube, video content hosted on YouTube ranks well on Google. One of the best ways to capture search traffic from YouTube is to create videos around topics people are searching for or talking about, from viral phenomena to commonly asked questions.

Drive Social Engagement

In addition to platforms such as YouTube, social networks are increasingly promoting more video content. You have likely noticed that your Facebook newsfeed is dominated by video content from friends, paid advertisers and the brands you follow. Consumers are hungry for engaging video content. It is critical that your business is creating content that users will want to view and share.Make sure your video has subtitles if you are sharing on Facebook. Users are very likely to be scrolling in an environment where they don’t want sound but may still want to watch your video. Don’t miss that opportunity to engage with them.

Showcase Video On Your Website

Video is a great way to quickly and easily explain your business’ unique value proposition and showcase your company culture. Explainer and introduction videos are really strong tools for your homepage or a “how it works” section on your website. Don’t assume that people want to read through your services or scroll through a bunch of products. Make it easier for them with video.

Email, Email, Email!

Yes, email marketing still works. You must always be providing value. Email is a terrific way to stay top-of-mind and in front of consumers because it goes directly to them. Also, consumers on your email list have likely opted-in at some point, so it is a warm audience that is ready to hear from you.

There are tools that allow you to embed video directly into email campaigns, but video can be just as effective in email if you simply tease the video in the email and push users to your website. Those who are interested will click through. The key to successful email marketing is to create content that provides value.

What Type of Content Should Your Business be Creating?

You are probably now wondering, “Okay, I know where my video content should live, but what content should I be producing?” Here are a few ideas for types of impactful video content:

• Answer common questions. 
  This is a great tactic for SEO since searchers often search in question format. Think of the most common questions you get from potential customers and those are the same questions they are Googling.
• Make engaging, funny videos.
   Humans love to laugh and have short attention spans. Create content that speaks to both characteristics!
• Show how your brand works in behind-the-scenes videos. 
  People want to know how your brand works and what makes you great.
• Review products or services. 
  Share your expertise with the world by providing reviews on products/services related to your industry.
• Create tutorials or explanation videos. 
  The internet is a wealth of knowledge and consumers are using it to research and learn. Capture some of this opportunity by creating relevant tutorials or tips videos for your audience.
• Go live on social media platforms, such as Facebook Live. 
  Social platforms are always looking for ways to generate engagement and what better way than live video and interactions? Facebook and other networks are really pushing their live offerings and placing priority on these in their ranking algorithms. Take advantage of the extra traffic potential while it lasts. Be thoughtful with your content. Viewers may not want to watch you playing video games, but streaming your upcoming panel discussion, an inside look at the new office or anything that consumers may find interesting/relevant can drive real engagement in social.
• Hold webinars or presentations. 
  Consumers are hungry for knowledge and love hearing from industry experts. Give them what they want.

Quality Is In The Content

One of the concerns clients have about creating video content is that the production quality will reflect poorly on their brand. Luckily, a content marketing plan should consist of a variety of video content and not all has to be national TV spot quality. As internet video is being consumed in record volume daily, production is becoming more affordable. The quality that people really care about is the content itself — are you providing them with a video that is helpful, useful, enlightening, applicable, entertaining or amusing? Achieve any combination of these qualities and you can expect success with your video marketing. Video can change the face of your content strategy and bring you closer to your audience. Make sure as you are planning out your next marketing roadmap that video has a prominent place in your content marketing strategy in order to capitalize on the benefits of YouTube, social networks and general consumer interest in video.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor
Please click either Link to Learn more about Inbound Marketing.

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

Yao Qian works in the technology department of People's Bank of China, the country's central bank and financial market regulator. Qian discusses the relationship between digital currencies and bank accounts, proposing a design concept where bank accounts and digital currency wallets coexist.

While technological direction, risk control and security measures are all important, the effectiveness of digital currency ultimately relies on its successful application. For a digital fiat currency (DFC) to show vitality and supplement or even replace traditional currency, it has to be user friendly and well received by the public. Currently, the issuance of fiat currency in China follows the 'central bank-commercial bank' system, and most of the social and economic activities are based on the commercial bank account system.

Therefore, if a digital currency can leverage existing IT infrastructure with a variety of applications and services, the costs of promoting digital currency would be significantly reduced and its use would be more convenient and flexible, facilitating the wide adoption of digital currency by the public. In addition, the incorporation of digital currency into existing applications would generate more diversified scenarios, which would contribute to a greater competitiveness of digital currency, providing better services.

Breaking ground

The most straightforward way to leverage the bank account system is to expand the scope of central bank's balance sheet. In fact, claims on a central bank of commercial banks and other financial institutions in the form of central bank deposits have already been digitized. However, should the central bank provide such services to broader counterparties? Should non-financial institutions such as households be allowed to open accounts at the central bank?

These questions have triggered a lot of discussions. The Bank of England, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Sveriges Riksbank have already studied this topic. Ben Broadbent, deputy governor of the Bank of England, has pointed out the concerns of commercial banks who worry that it would result in a transfer of deposits from commercial banks to the central bank, thus causing the entire banking sector to shrink. In fact, this is also a common concern of the regulators. Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People's Bank of China (PBoC), made an incisive yet illuminating comment on this issue, stating:

"The technological route of digital currency can be either based on bank account system (account-based) or not based on bank account system (non-account-based), and the two approaches may co-exist and operate at different layers."

However, there are various interpretations on how to implement the design idea. I would like to share some of my thoughts on this.

The incorporation of digital currency attributes is also an innovative step for the commercial bank account system. Commercial banks would be able to not only provide digital currency services based on existing infrastructure but also explore new service models that leverage features of digital currency, which will enhance their service quality and competitiveness. This article is only a beginning of a series of discussions.

Further studies may focus on standards of wallet design with possible questions to think about as follows:

1. How to set differentiated currency usage cost and asset pricing policies so as to strike a balance among banknotes, DFC and commercial bank deposits during the transition period?
2. How to build an ecosystem that involves the central bank, issuing banks, commercial banks, wallet service providers, payment service providers and digital currency users?

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor
Please click either Link to Learn more about Bitcoin.

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

The combined market capitalization of all public cryptocurrencies

has surged nearly 80% over the last month, as more than $20bn worth of new investment dollars has flooded the nascent market. In roughly 30 days alone, the market cap for experimental blockchain-based cryptographic assets has ballooned from $27.8bn to $49.5bn, according to data from CoinMarketCap, with the strongest gains observed outside of the market's historical leader, bitcoin.

A closer look reveals the total market cap of so-called 'altcoins', cryptographic tokens that seek to serve alternative use cases to bitcoin, has surged to $23.5bn, up more than 600% from just over $3bn in early March. Amid this sharp rally, some market observers have expressed concerns that the asset class may have entered a speculative bubble. When supporting his argument, Jacob Eliosoff, a trader who runs a cryptocurrency fund, pointed to not only to the price gains, but also the fact that so many cryptocurrencies – including those that haven't seen technical or business progress – have risen in value.

Eliosoff told CoinDesk:

"I've been making the bubble argument for weeks. Doge, Dash, Litecoin, Stellar, Gnosis … practically every coin has surged."

He further cautioned that this development is "a sign of unthinking buyers that will sell as soon as the tide turns." Daniel Masters, director of the regulated investment vehicle Global Advisors Bitcoin Investment Fund (GABI), offered similar sentiment, emphasizing that even cryptocurrencies with smaller market caps – like litecoin, ether, namecoin and ripple – have all experienced strong gains over the last few months. He told CoinDesk that he believes "sentiment [is] too strong," noting that between this and record prices for cryptocurrencies, a bubble may be forming.

More room to grow

While the aforementioned analysts provided cautious viewpoints, other market observers were more optimistic, asserting that cryptocurrency prices have significant room to appreciate despite current prices. Harry Yeh, the managing partner of Binary Financial, took a bullish slant, telling CoinDesk that "there's still quite a ways to move" as more investors take note of big gains in the sector. Tim Enneking, chairman of Crypto Currency Fund, also spoke to the market's potential. "I would agree that prices have increased too far too fast, but I don't think it's a serious problem – more like a buying opportunity," he said. He elaborated on this statement, pointing out that it is challenging to determine the "true value" of a cryptocurrency: "I'm not sure I would label it a bubble, at least not yet. It's quite difficult to definitively state what the intrinsic value is or should be of an altcoin,"

he said, adding:

"Property is worth what people are willing to pay for it."

Rising OTC trading

One strong indicator of the bullish sentiment is robust trading. While transaction volume for many of the digital assets listed on Coinmarketcap has risen, over-the-counter (OTC) trading firms have also reported an increase in activity. Martin Garcia, vice president of Genesis Global Trading, noted that his New York-based firm is experiencing such an improvement. "Our new applications are up significantly, and old clients are circling back as well," Garcia said. Ryan Rabaglia, head trader for Octagon Strategy, expressed a similar sentiment.

"Our desk has had [a threefold] volume increase over the last few months and over the last few weeks we're onboarding new counterparties at a record rate," he said. Finally, Rabaglia spoke to the changing demands of his customers, emphasizing that while bitcoin and ether are still the "hottest names," his trading desk has repeatedly received requests for trades involving lesser-known alternative cryptocurrencies such as ZEC, DASH, ETC and XRP. Ultimately, he characterized the current market as one with abundant opportunities for his business.

He concluded:

"Up to this point we've dabbled in each and are considering dedicating more resources if the demand persists."

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor
Please click either Link to Learn more about Bitcoin.

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

Cryptocurrency –
Looking Ahead from May 2017

  

For cryptocurrency enthusiasts, developers and investors,

the first half of 2017 has been nothing but exciting. Very few people would have predicted the trends that we are now seeing today: a vibrant and rapidly growing altcoin market, massive all time highs for both Bitcoin and Ethereum and an initial coin offering (ICO) crowdfunding mechanism that is creating enormous investor hype. Among all of this noise are a number of very interesting developments. These developments could indicate what’s to come in the second half of 2017, and this article aims to summarize events so far and what may be to come. Whatever your role in the cryptocurrency space, this piece should serve as some inspiration as to where to look next.

Ripple – Bitcoin for Banks

ripple logo

The popularity of Bitcoin’s blockchain stems from its ability to circumvent banks and allow users to engage in peer to peer transactions without authority; creating an enormous array of applications for Bitcoin gambling and dark net markets, as well as limitless “white hat” models. This ideology is more powerful than ever today, but the introduction of Ripple in 2013 has demonstrated that banks themselves can be revolutionized by overhauling their systems to use blockchain-based payments.

Ripple is unlike most other cryptocurrencies, in that it operates on a private or “consortium” blockchain, whereby the nodes (transaction verifiers) are controlled by trusted financial institutions that have been vetted to join the network – on the contrary, anyone in the world is free to join and use the Bitcoin network. The Ripple tokens (XRP) power international transactions on the network, whether that’s fiat to fiat, crypto to crypto or a mix of the two – with currency exchange conversions happening on the fly. Ripple allows banks to reduce global (and domestic) payment times from days and weeks down to seconds, with layers of transparency that are unprecedented in the traditional banking sector.

Despite being a private blockchain, anyone in the world is able to purchase XRP, and with a fixed supply of 100bn, scarcity may play an important role in the future price of XRP. This scarcity has also been compounded by the founding team of Ripple agreeing to verifiably “lock up” well over half of that total supply – adding some predictability to the XRP price. This lock up time is possibly planned for an extension, which – combined with the listing of XRP on major exchanges like Bitstamp, and Ripple’s partnership with Japan’s largest bank – has led to a meteoric rise in the value of XRP from $0.01 to $0.18 in a matter of weeks. Over the past several months, it has become apparent that large financial institutions are leaning towards consortium based blockchains as opposed to the public ones offered by Bitcoin – although Ethereum may buck that trend as discussed below.

Ethereum – EEA and Development Roadmap

 Ethereum Logo

Ethereum was the first blockchain to successfully convince investors that altcoins had a viable place in what was largely considered a Bitcoin-only ecosystem. Popular due to its built-in smart contract protocol, Ethereum is able to run computations that can transact value without middlemen. As a result, the project has led to the formation of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) which connects dozens of businesses and academics who are rapidly researching and developing smart contract technology.

While a number of the projects being worked on are private forks of Ethereum – such as JP Morgan’s Quorum protocol – the interoperability with the main Ethereum chain, as well as the lessons being learned (and shared among EEA members and the open source community), is having profound effects on Ethereum as a whole. The EEA is just one offshoot of Ethereum that has attracted enormous investment, however, there are other developments which have led to a recent upsurge in the price of Ether, from $10 to roughly $90 at the time of writing.

Ethereum Name Service

In May 2017, the Ethereum Foundation (EF) launched the Ethereum Name Service (ENS). This protocol is analogous to the separate Domain Name Service (DNS), which ties domain names to i.p. addresses – making them more readable to human users. In a similar way, the ENS will tie long and unreadable smart contract or personal wallet addresses to a memorable “name” such as mywallet.eth. These names are currently at auction, and there has so far been $7m worth of bids, with the exchange.eth receiving a massive $600,000 bid. Note that this is a proxy bid, meaning the winner would only ever pay a trivial amount more than the next highest bidder.

Reducing Miner Reward

A poll taking place on carbonvote.com has indicated that an overwhelming 99.73% are in agreement with a move to reduce the miner reward from 5 ETH per block to 2 ETH (with blocks continuing to be mined at roughly 15-second intervals). The motivation behind such a change is to reduce uncertainty about the future total ETH token supply, helping to drop ETH inflation from 13% to a figure that is more in line with Bitcoin’s 4% inflation.

Proof of Stake

Proof of Stake (PoS) is an alternative consensus protocol to the Proof of Work (PoW) mechanism that was made famous by Bitcoin’s blockchain. In order to secure a blockchain, miners must be rewarded by processing valid transactions and ignoring invalid transactions. In a PoW system, a miner must expend enormous amounts of energy (with a significant cost in doing so) to process a “block” of transactions and to earn their reward. PoW protocols are enormously inefficient, with huge energy requirements that are not in line with modern day environmental considerations.

Proof of Stake serves as an alternative consensus protocol that achieves similar levels of security but requires “miners” (called validators) to stake value in the form of cryptocurrency – expending little to no energy at all. If the validator tries to game the system for their own advantage, they lose all of their stated value. Validators that act honestly are rewarded by receiving what is analogous to interest payments. Ethereum plans to move from their PoW structure to a PoS one, and this move is pegged for the end of 2017/start of 2018. Such a change in protocol would lock enormous amounts of Ether in taking contracts, removing said Ether from the ecosystem and reducing circulating supply.

Bitcoin – Segregated Witness and the Litecoin test bed

bitcoin logo

Bitcoin has been unswayed by the incredible rise in altcoin market caps over the past 6 months and remains one of the best performing cryptocurrencies in the market. Having matured beyond the “pump and dump” phase, the currency has now established itself as the gateway to the world of crypto. Bitcoin is, in its current form, the ultimate store of value and medium for exchange when dealing with other currencies. All of this is despite major concerns over the currency’s ability to scale. Transaction fees have increased several times, and the mempool (unconfirmed transactions) has seen enormous growth – leading to delays of several hours or even days.

Thankfully, Bitcoin’s little cousin – Litecoin – has played a vital role in abating fear amongst Bitcoin investors. Litecoin, whose market cap is a fraction of Bitcoin’s, has acted as a test bed for introducing Segregated Witness (SegWit) – a code change to help mitigate some of the scaling problems mentioned above. Litecoin’s activation of SegWit has given developers, users and miners renewed confidence in what this code change can do for Bitcoin, providing a “light at the end of the tunnel” on a 3-year long debate.

Where do cryptocurrencies go from here?

Many early adopters have hailed blockchain technology as “the internet 2.0”. In past years, a number of key figures in the industry analogized the current state of blockchain to that of email in the 1990s, suggesting that what we see today is a fraction of what can be achieved with the protocol in the years ahead. That analogy, which was (and still is) heavily criticized by skeptics, is now becoming too obvious to ignore. Rather than blockchains competing with one another, we are seeing interoperability take hold, and growth is practically ubiquitous amongst all major cryptocurrencies. Smart contract technology is destined to have an enormous impact on a broad range of markets in the years to come, and the impact that blockchain-based banking will have on global economics is undeniable.

It is likely that cryptocurrencies will continue to grow at an unprecedented rate until, in the same analogous way to the Internet, we experience a gigantic bubble. At what point the bubble bursts is an unknown, however – sticking with the analogy – it wasn’t until the Internet reached a value well into the trillions that the market crashed. Compare this figure with that of the blockchain market which is worth no more than $100bn and it seems that we may still be some way off. Despite what seems like an inevitable bubble, the very long-term outlook for blockchain users, investors and developers could not be brighter.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor
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