Let's face it. Most people have short attention spans. If your blockchain's tech is complicated and it takes more than a few seconds to explain its unique value proposition, you're lost. Users just won't care.
People want simplicity.
Here are a few Tweets I found on the interwebs just now:
If you're trying to attract anybody to your app or blockchain, your unique value proposition needs to be simple, like bitcoin's value proposition.
Bitcoin is a digital, scarce, decentralized store of value away from governments, banks and corporations
People have heard of bitcoin and yet, in the grand scheme of things, it's tiny.
Let's look at this chart that compares the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap:
Each square in this visual representation is $100 million. on top is Bitcoin with $1.9 Trillion and on the very bottom is HIVE with a market cap of $120 million at the time of writing.
Do you see how big the difference is? You REALLY have to zoom in just to see the little red line representing HIVE, which is 0.0063% the size of bitcoin.
So why are many of us still trying to sell HIVE as "cheaper and faster than bitcoin"? This value proposition is old, it's used by dozens of different blockchains and is simply not that compelling, not to mention it pisses bitcoiners off.
Bitcoin is in the news.
You've got public figures like Michael Saylor, Jack Mallers and Saifedean Ammous all investing in, talking about and writing books about bitcoin.
We've got "bitcoin presidents" and there's even bitcoin hubs all over the world:
We've got Bitcoin beach in El Salvador, there's bitcoin Jungle in Costa Rica, Bitcoin Lake in Guatemala...
Bitcoin is the king of cryptocurrencies, whether you like it or not and no amount of "we're faster and cheaper" will dethrone Bitcoin's brand power, security layer, or cultural importance.
So instead of trying to fight bitcoin, why don't we talk about how HIVE is a complement for bitcoin?
The problem
Bitcoin is amazing, but it's slow and can be expensive to move around.
This is why The Lightning network was developed.
The Lightning network sort of works, but if you've ever asked someone who works with it every day, running a LN node is difficult, expensive and the fees it generates struggle to cover the costs of operating it. Ask @brianoflondon if you don't believe me.
If the incentives to run an LN node are so low, could it be possible that large corporations like River Financial could be the only ones running LN nodes and eventually require KYC or subscriptions to use their channels?
HIVE fixes this
HIVE is a great alternative to the Lightning network to move Bitcoin around. It's not the same, it's different and it adds a few more features than Lightning.
HIVE is a network that incentivizes node operators as well as users that add value through content creation and curation.
Node operators (witnesses) are incentivized to have their witness nodes up to date, say what they are doing for the protocol and interact with the community whether that's in a pseudonymous or semi-anonymous way.
Users are incentivized to create valuable content and to promote valuable content from others. We are also incentivized to downvote other users that are behaving in ways that undermine the integrity of the network.
The HIVE blockchain has a bunch of ways that allows users to create wealth, but could it be possible that the complexity in the tech make it hard for user adoption?
HIVE isn't competing against Bitcoin, it can complement Bitcoin by doing what Bitcoin doesn’t natively do: fast content interaction, social incentivization, feeless micro-rewarding, near real-time settlement at the app layer.
Could focusing on simple value proposition like this help accelerate adoption by businesses and other users?
I think there's a chance.
People that are much smarter and eloquent than me are coming up with ways of saying HIVE makes [insert name here] protocols more functional, and I think it's a much more compelling approach.
I'm going to promote https://onebitcoinclub.org/ more in the coming weeks.
You post about bitcoin, create valuable discussion and you can get rewarded by the community for it. 7 days later, you can withdraw part of your rewards in Bitcoin. Earn sats.
I'm sure the @vsc.network will help drive this concept home once it's implemented.
Let me know what you think in the comments.