The disruptive power of crypto has gone mainstream. The hypothetical “crypto-economy” is here. At the time of writing this article, the crypto market capitalisation is at $2245.1 billion and is continuing to grow.
Crypto has moved on from theoreticals and whitepapers to having real-world applications with hundreds of projects being run across the globe. Brands, institutions and governments are all getting in on the crypto economy. El Salvador has adopted Bitcoin as legal tender, Walmart's using it in its food traceability system, J.P. Morgan is now using blockchain for some cross-border payments and Twitter has also adopted Bitcoin.
With the crypto economy on the rise, what does this mean for marketers and the brands they work for?
Simply because something is popular, does not necessarily mean that your brand should jump on board. But the crypto economy is something that is here to stick around and offers lots of benefits to your brand. It is more than a passing fad.
Here are some of the benefits your brand can see from using the crypto economy:
Users of the crypto economy typically are those who value transparency in their transactions. By embracing the crypto economy you can attract this audience who may be outside of your established customers.
A study from Business Wire showed that 40% of customers who pay with crypto are new customers of the company, and their purchase amounts are twice those of credit card users.
By embracing the crypto economy you can position your brand in this new and important space. You will be ready for a future that could be centred around crypto and demonstrate to potential customers that you are an adaptive brand that embraces change.
You may start to find that your important clients and vendors want to engage with your brand by using crypto. As such, your brand needs to be able to receive and distribute crypto to safe exchanges to keep these customers and vendors happy.
Beyond payments, the other key way that the crypto economy will impact your brand is the rise of the metaverse.
The metaverse is a digital world which can be entered via a VR headset and navigated with a virtual avatar.
In this purely digital space, crypto thrives. The amount of time we will spend in digital worlds is significantly increasing and is forecast to reach an hour a day per person by 2026. Crypto can be used to purchase in-game items, digital art, virtual real estate and luxury digital goods – with sales booming.
Crypto is the currency of the metaverse and NFTs have further accelerated its use and dominance in the virtual world.
Digital items that are sold as NFTs are becoming part of the mainstream for consumers. As NFTs grow, their technology will be used as a way to determine ownership of everything from ‘land’ to avatars in the metaverse. Businesses not only need to be prepared for significant revenue streams in the metaverse but also a growing expectation of being present in the metaverse and creating NFTs is a great way to do this.
The crypto-economy has been rising in popularity for many years. It is here to stay and markets and brands need to get on board. Crypto presents numerous opportunities for brands by expanding their audiences to becoming innovators in their space. Brands in all kinds of industries need to prepare and position themselves for the rapid growth of the crypto economy. If you don't, you run the risk of being outshined by your competition or emerging players from other industries.
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