Which is the right execution for an alt-currency to go mainstream?

[Andrea Rovai]

Hi folks,
here is Andrea Rovai, first post here.
My question to you is: which is the right execution for an alt-currency to go mainstream?
We're seeing various attempts these days to create currencies designed to overcome the obstacles that have prevented bitcoin to go mainstream so far.
Tether, Ethereum, NuBits,  Bitshares, and several other experiments have tackled the volatility (Tether, NuBits for what seems to me), others have developed the idea even more, like Ethereum.
But my concern is that this is not enough to go mainstream.
P.S. When I say mainstream I mean at least 200 million monthly active users, at least Twitter-like mainstream. Being covered on the Financial Times sometimes is not being mainstream for the sake of this mental experiment.

Back on topic, IMHO the whole shebang is not only a question of design of such a currency: it mostly regards the execution of this attempt.

Now, just for speculation, assuming we've solved the major weakness of designing an ideal currency to take over the monetary system, how should we market it? The first problems that comes to my mind is that it's a two-sided marketplace, that is, you have to target both consumers and merchants. Most people I happened to talk to about bitcoin are concerned to not being able to spend this sort of money, so it's of paramount importance to involve merchants, shops, whatever really soon. But if you target these first, then odds are you'll get a No as answer.  
If we are on the same page, we should look at alt-currencies as companies that play a game, in which the aim is to create a monopoly, and where competitors are other currencies. Whether the company is a profit company or a foundation: it's not important here. According to this vision, main problems are value proposition and distribution.

According to Peter Thiel's most recent book "Zero to One", such alt-currency should find a little, unconsidered market, unserved by competitors and about ready to boom if you execute well, then scale starting from this market. It should be based on a secret, that is, an uncommon knowledge you have discovered about human-social dynamics - at least in this example.
The value proposition of such a currency means its uniqueness. Tether, Ethereum and NuBits are all pretty unique for what it seems to me.
But most important, such currency should benefit the network effects since the beginning. It can be extreme valuable only when everyone's using it. It has to be valuable since the beginning to take off.
But let's go on, I've almost finished.

At the very beginning of the bitcoin's Odyssey, such unserved market was clearly composed by cypherpunks, hackers, hacktivists, people concerned about these topics and quite experts in cryptography-hacking. It seems pretty obvious at this point that bitcoin didn't manage to make the quantum leap toward the big competition with dollar, euro etc. I say "didn't" because, given that we're talking about technology, bitcoin, if well-designed, should have already taken the market. Facebook exists since 2004, iPhone since 2007. If you consider now that platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat really boomed quickly, that you will imply that these platforms have piggybacked Facebook and mobile phones as platforms to exploit in order to boom faster, thus, such as in physics, they have added their speed to the speed of the platforms below.
This is all to say that money, in the current form, is really old, so it should take its time to disrupt money.
But all things considered, you could piggyback existing networks nowadays to achieve this. So if it isn't happened yet, it is both a problem of design and execution.
My question, anyway, is only about execution. The design topic is not interesting to me in this topic, so please, stay on topic.

So, question 1: what should it be the value proposition of an alt-currency in order to take over the market and go mainstream really quickly in your opinion?
And, question 2: which distribution channel would you use to distribute such a currency? Please don't say the blockchain, I'm not talking about that, I'm asking how would you substantially execute to go mainstream.

[P-Funk]

It's the billion dollar question that many alts are trying to answer. I like the idea of finding "a little, unconsidered market, unserved by competitors."  Brainstorming for a minute I came up with the yoga/New Age crowd. They generally have disposable income, many distrust or avoid mainstream culture (which can include money), many are influential with the people around them, and there is very strong networking in these circles.  And most of them have smartphones.

As far as distribution goes, give the tokens or coins to businesses or organizations serving them, such as yoga studios, book/herb stores, acupuncturists, massage therapists, you get the picture. Give them in the form of business card size paper wallets with a QR code link to the wallet app. Somehow convince the organizations to give these out with purchase or something, with the ability for customers to come back and use as money or discount later.

Cue 10 "Spiritcoin" or "Yogacoin" alt announcements  But the idea I'm guessing you're trying to put forward is to create a strong seed of adoption within one community that can then grow from there. In this case a more universal label and brand would be useful.

Great first post by the way.

[brg444]

Start with : not be a scam.

Right away I can tell you Tether, Ethereum and NuBits do not qualify.

[Mickeyb]

Hello Andrea, welcome to the forum and to the Bitcoin world.

You have written a very long post and even though there are some valid points in your post, I don't understand many things that you are trying to say.

So let me start with the first one and most important one. How do you expect that some alt will just come out of nowhere and grab 200 million of new users when Bitcoin is trying to do for 6 years already and it still hasn't succeeded. Let me remind you that Bitcoin does what is supposed to do very well for 6 years, sending money from person A to person B. It hasn't been hacked, it works, etc.. Bitcoin has an army of people working for it, many wallets, payment processors, marketers, start-ups, etc..

Now to make my question even more deeper and relevant, how do you expect that Ethereum or Bitshares will do this when Bitcoin hasn't done it yet? I was with Bitshares for over a year. These guys don't have a functioning wallet for more than 13 months now. They have changed plans, supply, block times and everything that they could change at least 3 times so far. Now I see they are marketing Crypto 3.0 platform with 1000 TPS. I don't care. You have sold my trust, I don't care anymore about you.

The same with Ethereum. 18 millions raised and you don't hedge this money against the volatile Bitcoin prices so you lose 9 million right away. 20 months of development and you don't even have a working wallet for masses to store their coins, but people need to use online wallets that turn to be scam and they lose their money. And the latest, the main dev comes and tells the community that they are broke and that they have only funds for 6+ months.

What a bunch of BS. I took all my ethers and sold them the very same day.

So let me ask you once again, how do you expect that these clowns get 200 million people on board when Bitcoin hasn't managed to do that yet in 6+ years?

P. S. The only community beside Bitcoin community of course that follows the road map and that has delivered over 90% of promised so far while not changing plans is NXT community. You can call them scam coin, premine, or whatever but I respect their honesty and professionalism and that's why I hold some of the NXT coins.

[Sir Alpha_goy]

.

[GRCnation]

the network should have inherent value in it self. Each new block should not only represent an amount of wasted electricity, but also equal an amount of research that took place, like in Gridcoin (hey, they are hot and bring relevant changes into the crypto space, see for instance http://pigrid.com )

[reRaise]

You will reach mainstream if your target market is actually mainstream with enough innovation, incentive for mainstream users and proper marketing. Besides Bitcoin only GetGems i have seen going this path and doing well.

[wingspan]

your execution should include marketing that makes it appear cool.  People won't talk favorable about some new product if it seems used by criminals, geeks, the rich, or anyone people don't want to associate with.   Advertising should highlight how beneficial it is to society and how cool one is to switch over to it.  For example, global warming cap and trade was sold as "saving the earth".... and high-heel footwear as beautiful... and cigarettes a long time ago as hip.

[Andrea Rovai]

Hi guys,
I really appreciated your exhaustiveness.
By the way, let me try to address all questions:

@P-funk: problem is: how to jump from the Yoga-user base to mainstream? And to talk precisely, what problem of Yoga guys you are going to solve? Because to make it right you can't bet all your efforts on marketing: you have to actually solve a problem no one has already solved, neither bitcoin (this is to answer the question: why do you think this can go mainstream when bitcoin hasn't yet. because bitcoin hasn't find the right formula. Also Friendster was growing, but nothing close to Facebook, that sooner than ever dwarfed it)
Thanks for the good words
@brg444: thanks for you sharing your vision. I'm pretty new in this context and I'm trying to get "alt-currency literated" the sooner I can. Can you elaborate on that please?
@MickeyB: I expect it because when straw meets fire what you get is everything goes on fire. It all depends on the design and the execution - what's your explanation otherwise? it can't be done? Surely it can be done, and when it will, it will spread fast. If bitcoin hasn't taken off yet, it is necessarily because there are still unsolved, unaddressed problems. The point is finding these problem and addressing them. The main one is notoriously volatility. The second one comes as a side effect of anonymity: criminals, terrorism, drugs, silk road-like businesses ----> bad pr ---> you don't go mainstream. In a few words, the currency should concede something to the system's expectations in order to disrupt it, like a Troian Horse. And beware bitcoiners bearing gifts, tells Virgilio (http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/30/beware-bitcoiners-bearing-gifts/). To offer a comparison, mainframe computers were already present in the market when personal computers showed up and took the market. Then portable personal computers dethronized personal computers, and so on. Innovation is very quick when it's disruptive. But in order to be disruptive, such alt-currency should be a breakthrough. bitcoin already is, solving many problems of mainstream currencies, but it's definitely failed so far, because it hasn't played the right game AND has unsolved problems.
The number of startups betting on bitcoin is not relevant to me. They don't own the bitcoin asset or the blockchain, neither they have a position to reasonably drive the market somehow. So far there have been startups trying to get a slice of the already existing bitcoin eco-system, but noone with a vision of bitcoin as the mainstream currency. That's why Tether and Ethereum seems interesting to me, because they are betting on this, or at least they pretend to.
Thanks for the welcome anyway!
@Sir: interesting.  It reminds me a video I saw on YouTube once - unfortunately I haven't found it this time - where Sean Parker tells that Facebook solved the identity problem - before, if you remember, we were all anonymous on online chats, and that was the standard. But this way, there was more privacy but less productivity and trust . I never saw it this way before that video. The connection with what you're saying is that it has to based on an idea that is about ready to boom, but noone else considers it, or because it's unconvenient for them (Innovator's Dilemma) or because they haven't see it yet.
@MickeyB: thanks for all the info about these coins.
@bitcoinsatan: totally agree.
@GRCnation: these are brilliant attempts, but I often think they are, more than anything else, a clever way to market something - something near a scam. What I mean is: if you don't aim to support the platform, expand the user base, overcome the issues etc, then you fail. Isn't it? What you think?
@reRaise: I strongly think you're wrong. Think about it a moment: if your target is mainstream, then you lack a target. You can't target anyone, it's just mathematically wrong in a certain sense. You have to focus instead, and build a solid user base as a stable starting point. A wedge penetrates better than a square. Think about Facebook. Zuck and Saverin didn't target the world. They target their class and the friends of Saverin. If they have targeted the world they have miserably fail and they wouldn't be unique. You have to start little and then scale. Or you have to be ten times better, maybe solving a problem noone notices but as soon as you solved it you have them, like Dropbox did at first before cloud went mainstream).
@GRCnation: what kind of network could have the value that is the easiest to offer for the biggest number of people? The one with the lowest barrier to enter the market I mean.
@wingspan: definitely. Sometimes I think the storytelling shouldn't include the fact that you're somehow linked, at least for a historical reason, to bitcoin, blockchain or weirdo stuff (this is what people think, and thus matters). Sometimes I think Facebook is about ready to enter the market with a coin, but without calling it an alt-currency, a Ripple like. Facebook anyway doesn't have to partner up with banks, because it's a bank itself.
http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/26/the-bank-of-facebook/#.kp9ito:HjTb
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/14/facebook-e-money-transfer-service-europe
http://businessetc.thejournal.ie/facebook-banking-application-1413916-Apr2014/
http://www.americanbanker.com/bankthink/three-ways-facebook-may-break-into-banking-1074647-1.html

[skywave]

This has been on our agenda all the time:

Not to be another alt-coin/project - but to be a mainstream financial package with the added benefit of it's own currency + so much more.
A project with an easy to install/use interface and focused on the population worldwide.

You'll be pleased to see what it is once it will be officially available

[tyz]

Well, i think the main obstacle is to find big merchants which accept a particular coin. Let's say Walmart would be accept Bitcoin for instance, then it is very likely that this would be the breakthrough of cryptocoins.

[gjhiggins]

My question to you is: which is the right execution for an alt-currency to go mainstream?

Define “mainstream” and you might receive more focused answers but don’t bet on it. The questions are somewhat loosely framed, makes it a bit difficult to second-guess the intention underlying the question.

So, question 1: what should it be the value proposition of an alt-currency in order to take over the market and go mainstream really quickly in your opinion?

One which would exhibit properties relevant to a “take over” (whatever that’s defined to be).

I shouldn’t be surprised that you appear to expect people to volunteer potentially sensitive answers to Q1. But on this discussion board? Perhaps a little more time spent reading the threads of a few individual altcoins would help you appreciate that answers will, in effect, be ill-informed or mischievous misdirection.

question 2: which distribution channel would you use to distribute such a currency?

I've always understood that choosing the relevant distribution channel(s) can only sensibly be done by reference to the characteristics of the selected market segment(s).


Cheers

Graham

[bit1]

Hi Andrea,

You appointed that: designing of an ideal currency to take over the monetary system, Please let me say you that you could reconsider this idea, The monetary system have centuries working and so will could keep  speaking only about the Money and Cash, Be limited to only a way of buy or sell could be a thing very risky to peoples, Not even BTC itself could  be only used , Therefore  Gold, Cash, The coins of each contry, Certains Crypto-coins, Etc, Could be used on market and its should try to coexist always.

[Andrea Rovai]

@ghiggins: I've already defined mainstream: at least 200 million monthly active users.
Anyway, by asking the value proposition my aim is to know what relevant problem you are going to solve that is still unsolved and eventually, unconsidered.
@tyz: and what are the number of MAU (monthly active users) in your opinion necessary to be accepted by a player such as Walmart?
@Bit1: 200 million users doesn't mean that nobody uses dollars anymore.

[GRCnation]

a coin has to have intrinsic value, so each block represents a portion of a higher goal, i.e. scientific calculations: http://imgur.com/12gxxps

[Macemu]

Interesting thread. This might be of importance concerning this topic:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1200605.new#new

[gjhiggins]

@ghiggins: I've already defined mainstream: at least 200 million monthly active users.

Pseudonymous ownership of private keys is an inherent feature of all of the cryptocurrencies you’ll find on this discussion board. Users cannot be reliably distinguished so no metrics about “active users” are available.

Anyway, by asking the value proposition my aim is to know what relevant problem you are going to solve that is still unsolved and eventually, unconsidered.

I understand that. What I don't understand is why you’d expect people to share their strategic marketing plans in public.

Cheers

Graham

[bit1]

@Bit1: 200 million users doesn't mean that nobody uses dollars anymore.

@Andrea

Agree, But 200 million users doesn't mean neither to take over the monetary system, Which it is what is meant by you expressed above,  Designing of an ideal currency to take over the monetary system.
So it would be better to talk to supplement the monetary system instead of talk about to take over the monetary system as such. Believe me sometimes it is better to bring in your pocket some dollars more than
gold or even BTC on your account. Straining a bit more than I should, Be totally dependent on machines like to based blockchains system , Bank systems, Etc to buy or sell something for logic is risky in many ways.
So tangible instruments of value  should always be at par with those systems to ensure efficiency and freedom that a monetary system should provide. The very opposite effect should be if exceeded in a growing number of such instruments unbalanced so as in all there must be a balance.

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