By 2016 bitcoin and blockchain industry players adopt 5 types of strategies in order to popularise bitcoin and blockchain among the general public.
Though 2015 was the year of wide recognition of bitcoin and blockchain in the fintech community, the work on their popularisation among customers is yet ahead. Forbes has singled out 5 strategies employed by industry players in order to promote bitcoin and make it more mainstream.
1. The bitcoin play
Despite re-orientation of some companies to blockchain development and turning their backs to bitcoin advancement (Coinfox reported on such cases here), there are some that are still focused on the cryptocurrency. One of those faithful bitcoin-adherents is Coinbase. Businesses that stick to this strategy explain their decision saying that in the near future the most used blockchain will be that of bitcoin and it would not be able to maintain necessary capacity without people investing in bitcoin and speculating on its price.
2. The fintech play
Into this group fall the companies that use bitcoin blockchain without specifically advertising the fact to their customers – like Abra, Align Commerce, Circle and, partly, Uphold. In the end, they provide efficient and inexpensive financial services powered by the blockchain technology targeted not at bitcoin-enthusiasts but at ordinary customers willing to profit from peer-to-peer network opportunities (such as payments) or at businesses looking to facilitate B2B international payments.
3. The enterprise play
Companies focused on blockchain-based businesses form this group. They prefer to digitise already existing financial assets (fiat currencies, stocks, bonds, etc.) and to ease their issuance and transfer than to concentrate on the development of only one of these assets – bitcoin. The key player executing this strategy is Chain.com.
4. The consortium play
A strategy that consists in uniting several financial institutions together so that they could maximise the output of the technology. R3CEV is the most promising example: 42 banks are going to create a blockchain equivalent for inner communication and trade as well as to build commercial applications. Accumulated potential is supposed to outweigh comparative slowness caused by the multiplicity of actors.
5. The infrastructure play
A special strategy that cannot entirely be considered as a business one since it is pursued by non-profit projects (Ethereum) as well as by profit-makers (already mentioned Coinbase, Chain.com and R3). It should be noted that statistically infrastructure developers stay in the industry for a longer time comparing to those who promote separate use cases.
Anna Lavinskaya
