It’s not a question of persuasion either
At Unbounded Enterprise, we believe that Bitcoin will shape the future information economy by providing the foundation of a new internet. In order for this to happen, developers and consumers need to adopt Bitcoin. Up to this point, BSV adoption has been lackluster. How has adoption happened in the past? What are the barriers to adoption? What is the path to mass adoption?
It has been one month since I joined the Unbounded Enterprise team. My experience with blockchain up to that point had been minimal. My first foray into this space happened during the tail end of the boom in 2017. I had heard of Bitcoin, but did not understand much about it. Some friends convinced me to buy a little bit of Bitcoin and Ethereum. I watched the prices go up for a few weeks before something happened that my friends didn’t tell me about: the price started to fall. After a couple of months, I was in the red.
At that point, I more or less mentally wrote off blockchain, Bitcoin, and everything else associated with it as speculative and something I did not want to or need to be a part of.
Towards the end of 2020, I was dragged back in by a fear of missing out on a boom. I bought some Ethereum and some BTC, watched the price go up, and cashed out before I could be burned again. I still didn’t fully comprehend a lot about blockchain, but even after I sold, the price continued to rise for a couple months to astronomical levels.
I was intrigued, but I didn’t understand it. How could something that was “going to replace gold” as a storage of value be so volatile? When we buy stocks, although it is speculative, we often can make sense of what a company does that makes the price move. But BTC? Besides being able to use it to buy Teslas (briefly), it seemed like people were just hodling it, turning the “investment” into a complete guessing game.
Could there be more to blockchain than that? Is there any practicality? A few months ago, I reached out to Jack Laskey, Co-Founder of Unbounded Enterprise. I have known Jack since we played t-ball and performed in piano recitals together as kids. We talked for about an hour or so as he told me about what Unbounded Capital and Unbounded Enterprise were working on in the Bitcoin SV industry.
I was fascinated by the fact that Unbounded Enterprise was busy DOING so much with BSV and wanted to learn more. It also just so happened that I was beginning to look for the next step in my career.
The thought of being a part of something that could potentially overhaul so much of what we do on the internet lit a fire in me. I asked Jack if there was a position for someone with limited knowledge of the space. After a few weeks, Jack called me letting me know that Unbounded Enterprise was looking for someone with marketing and operations experience. I didn’t know much about BSV, but I told him I could learn about the industry quickly. He and Dave Mullen-Muhr shared several resources that would help me get up to speed. I was excited to learn and begin working.
After a couple months of thoughtful conversations with knowledgeable people, reading articles, and watching videos that were recommended to me, I know that I am by no means an expert in blockchain or Bitcoin. However, I know enough about blockchain and Bitcoin to believe in Bitcoin.
I share this story with you because it is NOT a scalable model for attracting people to BSV. Had I not known Jack since I was four years old, I am not sure I would have invested the time to learn about and ultimately believe in BSV. Had I not been looking for a new career opportunity, I am not sure I would have invested the time to learn about and ultimately believe in BSV. Had I not felt like I could make a leap into relative uncertainty, I am not sure I would have invested the time to learn about and ultimately believe in BSV.
It seems that so many factors lined up nearly perfectly in order for me to believe in BSV and be excited about Bitcoin adoption. Ultimately, I would characterize my immersion into Bitcoin as having happened through persuasion. Jack, Dave, and all of the articles and videos I consumed were enough to convince me.
Persuading people will not be easy. For me, Jack and Dave each spent a few hours on the phone with me answering questions and pointing me towards more resources. They won’t be able to build that trust and persuade thousands, millions, and billions of people. Simply directing people towards relevant information has flaws as well. So many people today are set in their ways and set in their beliefs and are not going to be willing to abandon them because of a few articles or videos.
Persuasion is not how we will drive Bitcoin adoption.
How can we create scalable paths to mass adoption?
When Jack spoke at CoinGeek’s Conference in October of 2020, he stated Unbounded Enterprise’s goal was to make adoption simple. While that goal is still at the forefront of Unbounded Enterprise’s mission, when Jack spoke in June of 2021 on a panel at CoinGeek Zurich, he noted, “We are now more focused on making adoption worthwhile.”
Why the shift in focus? From a technical standpoint, there are many resources for getting started with Bitcoin. HandCash allows developers to use their software development kit (SDK) to integrate nano payments through HandCash Connect in any application or platform. Run has an SDK that developers can build off of as well. Vaionex is another company that has infrastructure that allows developers to take advantage of micropayments to get paid for things where they otherwise would not be able to in other ecosystems.
These tools, among others, are helping to make Bitcoin adoption easy for developers. Great! But how do we persuade both developers and customers to take advantage?
Jack doesn’t think we are going to persuade anybody. “The people who are going to be persuaded are already here. The way that we can reach people is by showing them that they can make money using this technology and by providing applications that users want.”
And it’s not BSV investors who need to adopt. “What we need are applications that people who don’t care about BSV are compelled to use. We need to take on the challenge of creating applications that can bring more money into the space from a consumer standpoint and that prove to the market of builders that this is a way that they can make money.”
What applications will drive adoption? Unbounded Enterprise is focused on the gaming space. “I see the most momentum in BSV in the gaming space. I think that makes a lot of sense because that’s where users are most likely to adopt.”
Bitcoin adoption is no longer a technical issue.
There are ample tools and resources for developers looking to get started. But, we are not going to be able to simply persuade developers by telling them that development is easy. We need to prove that we can create business value and drive revenue and profit using this technology.
As Jack mentioned at CoinGeek, “At Unbounded Enterprise we hope to enable ourselves with infrastructure to actually lead the way and create compelling applications which can drive adoption, bring more people into the industry, and make the simplicity of creating these applications realized by actually having much more of an ecosystem and an environment where it is worthwhile to create applications.”
Our method at Unbounded Enterprise for making adoption worthwhile is by focusing on the intersection of micropayments and NFTs in the gaming vertical. Our goal is for NFTY Jigs to be at the forefront of driving Bitcoin adoption. Ultimately, NFTY Jigs will allow developers to build on top of, or in conjunction with, pre-existing games while consumers will be able to use their jigs across multiple applications.
Those who are already in the Bitcoin ecosystem can spend hours trying to persuade others to buy in. This may be an effective strategy for friends and family, but it is not a scalable solution. In order to ultimately reach the point where Bitcoin is providing the foundation for a new internet, adoption does not just have to be easy from a technical perspective, it has to be worthwhile from an economic perspective.