hotly fought over by a number of validprojects. Winning the user adoptionrace thus means overachieving yourfair share of visitors from searchengines. Yet relatively few blockchainprojects prioritise SEO. The paucity ofsearch-first companies perfectly encap-sulates the sector’s ongoing marketingadolescence.If, and when, John McAfee’s luck runs

out, few will miss the role he andothers played in blockchain’s promo-tional past. Compelling leaders areemerging. Take Binance’s Changpeng“C.Z” Zhao: while he may occasionallymisstep (such as his recent suggestionto reorder bitcoin to reverse a hack),

having a communications-first CEOremains a powerful asset for any ambi-tious crypto brand.Overall, we must forsake the facile

marketing tactics of old and buildtrustworthy global brands withbroader appeal. As institutions witheight-figure marketing pockets assimi-late our space, hiding places will beseverely rationed. Blockchain’s promo-tional agendas have always benefitedfrom agility and experimentation. Nowthey must develop a new marketingvirtue: sustained credibility.

Joe Rudkin, Marketing Director at BlockInfluence, in conversation with JamesBowater. You can follow Joe on Twitter@joerudkin or for more informationwww.blockinfluence.com

IMPORTANT INFORMATION: THE VIEWSAND OPINIONS PROVIDED BY CITY A.M.'SCRYPTO INSIDER AND IN THE CRYPTO A.M.SECTION SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN ASINVESTMENT OR FINANCIAL ADVICE.ALWAYS CONSULT WITH YOUR

The Blockchain industry has beenthrough an interesting journey overthe past 18 months, from huge ICO

raises, regulatory uncertainty, and nowgovernment and industry adoption…there has certainly been a change of tidein understanding what the blockchain isor can achieve.Many of the ICO projects that hit the

market and managed to raise hugeamounts of capital, fuelled by speculativevaluations, have not fulfilled the dreamspromised by the crypto evangelists oflate 2017, but in a twist of fategovernments, banks and big business arenow adopting the underlying technologythat was initially built to displace them,blockchain - let’s not forget Bitcoin wasthe result of many years of cryptographicinnovations to create a peer-to-peermonetary system that could operatewithout the necessity of the banks andgovernance mechanisms we know today,and now it seems the banks have

adopted the underlying technology totheir advantage.After living and working in Korea and

China for 5 years, Robert Cooke startedChain Enable as a cross-borderconsultancy and agency specialising inbuilding relationships between Asian andEuropean markets. By working closelywith a number of agencies and investorsin Asia, Chain Enable helped projects toshape and localise marketing materials,build communities, and introduceinvestors in the APAC region. In early2018, Chain Enable expanded and built apartnership with Paul Morgan, aseasoned CTO and serial entrepreneurwith a development team based acrossthe UK and Europe. “Partnering with Paulwas a huge step in Chain Enable’s story…we have acquired a qualified team ofdevelopers and are able to build productsfor many of the clients we helped to servefrom the earlier days.” Over the past 20years Paul has built a deep knowledge in

24 TUESDAY 21 MAY 2019FEATURE CITYAM.COM 25TUESDAY 21 MAY 2019 FEATURECITYAM.COM

Crypto influencers continue to pro-vide access to a global audience. Theircurrent properties are a far cry fromthe low-fi YouTube “Ask Me Anythings”of yore. Podcasts and newsletters suchas Peter McCormack’s What Bitcoin Didand Anthony Pompliano’s Off TheChain are taking blockchain to newaudiences.Blockchain networking events and

conferences are also achieving new lev-els of quality and quantity. They allowexisting projects to attract mainstreaminterest and the current choice is idealfor negotiating valuable sponsorships. Digital advertising has been histori-

cally stymied by Facebook and Google’s

This morning marks the first officialCrypto AM Blockchain Breakfast atBalthazar in Covent Garden where 24

leaders in the UK blockchain industry will begathering. I will be tweeting about it so pleasefollow me @CityAM_Crypto.Bitcoin (BTC) has continued to astonish (it

reached its 2019 All Time High of $8,311) since last week’s CryptoAM, despite a circa $1,600 flash crash, is trading at US$7,721.57;Ethereum (ETH) at US$244.05; Ripple (XRP) at US$0.3860; Binance(BNB) at US$28.41 and Cardano (ADA) at US$0.08111. OverallMarket Cap is at US$241.68bn (data source:www.CryptoCompare.comMany are wondering why the Bitcoin bull run is on a charge. Last

week was the Consensus Blockchain Week in New York, whichtraditionally sees a bump in the price, but there other factors atplay. The halvening of BTC Block mining rewards, which happensevery four years, is exactly a year away and historically in the yearrunning up to this event BTC enjoys uplift. Recent positivenewsflow has also been a factor with the Winklevoss twins buyingcoffee in Starbucks using crypto. Many other US retailers arefollowing suit including Nordstrom, Whole Foods and RegalCinemas. Another factor is that today is decision day by the USSEC on whether to approve or reject the Van Eck Bitcoin ETFwhich, if approved, could signal institutional adoption andpossibly send BTC to the magical US$10,000 mark where it isbelieved many buy orders will kick in so watch this space!Changing tack somewhat and delivering potentially devastating

news for exchanges, other crypto service providers and the globalFintech ecosystem, BBFTA chair Barry E James called me to sharehis findings after contributing to the recent G8 Global Anti-MoneyLaundering ‘consultation’ in Vienna. FATF (Financial Action TaskForce) is seeking pretty immediate global regulation of cryptoservices. The banking lobby were clearly evident - and vocallyderisive - sounding triumphalist. Well they may be, it seems, havingconvinced FATF to slam Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) bycutting & pasting an ineffective and unworkable regime, taken fromwire transfers, that could decimate or kill the industry. Barry toldme “the outcome could be to drive more activity underground with‘legal’ / compliant exchanges etc reduced to a rump that couldeasily be swallowed up by the banks.”Last week at the Crypto Curry Club, I met Jason Maskell who is

just launching consenttracker.com which is an App that helpscreate a safer dating experience by building consent agreementsthroughout the date. Users create a profile and upload their IDwhich is stored in the Blockchain. At each stage of the date, bothhave to agree to confirm consent and the App also tracks locationallowing for a more respectful, fun and safer dating experience. Avery worthy user case indeed!

crypto bans. As these barriers lift, wehave a new channel to acquire cus-tomers. The stage is set for targeted adsto drive far greater adoption forblockchain companies.As social sentiment becomes more

savvy, credibility has never been moreimportant. Community managementremains a significant but necessarycommitment. Active social-media chan-nel maintenance, regular posts and fastresponses to inbound enquiries are notoptional. Failing to maintain an activeand accurate presence is reputation-imperiling.The current market is notable for its

levels of competition. Each niche is

Last week’s 25% bitcoin pricesurge harked back to November2017, when the market traced asimilarly astonishing trajectory.18 months on from the great

bull market, the nascent blockchainspace is unarguably older - but is itwiser?Certainly some of the marketing tac-

tics employed by crypto projects backthen makes for neither glowing remi-niscence nor good example. Who dares not to cringe when

reminded of John McAfee’s “Coin of theDay”, in which each tweet lionised a“favourite” crypto token (that McAfeemay have been paid to promote). In thecase of his tweet about Burstcoin, thisresulted in a near-instant priceeruption of 350% - followed by a precip-itous fall of a similar magnitude. While McAfee’s near-million-strong

follower-count enticed several projectsin the moment, the cumulative effectof “Coin of the Day” was a loss of credi-bility for specific projects and theindustry as a whole. Nor was this dis-credited mechanic a rare eddy in amillpond of competence: examples ofshoddy practice are myriad. So, as cryp-to embraces the exponential oncemore, how can its marketers play theirpart in avoiding the dubious promo-tional practices of the past?ICOs defined the last bull market,

with their necessity to rapidly attractretail investment. Creating short-termcommunity buzz became the defaultstrategy. It was not bereft of issues.In the race to build social-media

momentum, some projects purchasedfake followers. The social metrics ofAirfox - an ICO that refunded investorsafter SEC intervention - demonstraterapid spikes in Twitter followers fol-lowed by similar drops a few weekslater: the hallmarks of bulk followerpurchases. Using fake followers to boost commu-

nity numbers impacts trust andengagement. Yet it persists. A 2019analysis alleged that Twitter sentimentregarding Ripple’s XRP token was con-trolled by a “bot army” of thousands ofsimulated accounts. Another has esti-mated that in the case of Justin Sun,founder of TRON, a sizeable proportion

of recent followers were fake.Airdrops and bounty campaigns were

another infectious marketing malady.In the case of the former, providing freetokens to holders of another token wasa fast way to achieve interest - until theSEC’s ruling on Tomahawk Coin madeit clear that the Howey test applied evento freebies: perhaps saving us all from ahorde of derivative projects. While Bounty campaigns have their

uses (such as crowd-sourcing code-bugs)rewarding users for posting about aproject is problematic. One side-effect isthe blockchain project Telegram“ghost” group: many thousands ofmembers but just a handful of active

users. Few are fooled. Back then, influencers could name

their price to promote an ICO. Manyfailed to disclose their interest. Theapogee: Paris Hilton and FloydMayweather facing SEC sanction. Suchpractices have no place in other sectors;nor should they be allowed here again.Far better to be transparent: long-termusers reward those they trust.Instead of the ICO, we now have STOs

and IEOs - not to mention many fundedprojects with MVPs seeking toaccelerate roadmap progression, driveuser adoption and build engaged com-munities. Marketing must evolve tosuit.

Designed byPhill Snelling, Bowater Media

In association with

CITY A.M.’SCRYPTO INSIDER

Crypto AM shines its Spotlight on Chain Enable

@CityAm_CryptoE:CryptoInsider@cityam.com

JAMES BOWATER

PARTNER CONTENT

Our series on AI, Blockchain, Cryptoassets, DLT and Tokenisation

Money. A topic that most of ustend to grow up never reallytalking about. We don’t teach it

much at home, and we certainlydon’t learn about it in our primaryschools. Yet, we use money every sin-gle day, in order to perform the mostbasic of civilised human activities. Weuse it to travel, eat, communicate,and access information, 24/7. It seems being good with money is

something we would want our kids toknow about, yet, it is something wealmost completely ignore until muchlater in their lives, when it is oftentoo late. What’s more, money ischanging... fast! We live in the age ofBitcoin, Minecraft and Monzo. Frompaper, to plastic to code. In our gener-ation alone (speaking as a 32 year oldparent), money has radically trans-formed, whether we’re comfortablewith it or not.Growing up in the 90’s, learning

about money looked like a porcelainpiggy bank. My savings had weight. Icould touch them, hear them, tastethem if I wanted (I don’t recommendlicking pennies). But today it’s all dig-ital. Money lives on a screen insideour smart-phones, magically dis-pensed with a tap of a plastic card. It’salso practically indistinguishablefrom the play money our kidsencounter inside video-games every-day. There’s a disconnect. The humblepiggy bank served us well, but hasbecome obsolete in an age of digitali-sation and globalisation. You can’tswipe a credit card through it, andrelatives that live abroad can’t con-tribute much to it either.If my own father, who lives abroad,

wanted to reward my 5 year old boyfor cleaning his room, it's nonsensicalfor my son to wait 1 month, forgrandad’s next visit, to collect a 10pcoin. The same reasoning applies totooth fairies, birthdays and holidays.

We should be able to share moneywithin an extended family unit, asfrequently, quickly, and as cost effec-tively as possible, just like we do withvideos, pictures, and text messages.So why can’t we? Amongst skills like problem solving,

creativity and empathy, I spend a lotof time thinking about how to makemy kids good with digital money, notbecause I want them to be rich, butbecause I want them to be happy! Itisn’t always easy though, and the atti-tudes and sensibilities us parents usu-ally want our kids to develop aroundmoney, are hard enough to impartwithout adding the complexities of“blockchain” and “cryptocurrencies”into the discussion. So where does thisleave parents like me?In the end, it all comes down to sim-

ple interactions. Kids don’t really carehow Bitcoin, Ether, or Wollo work(three of thousands of cryptocurren-cies available to buy and sell). All theycare about is HOW to get money, andWHAT they can do with it WHENthey’ve got it. Whether they’re after akinder egg, a new level inside a video-game, or a pair of sneakers, moneyitself is not important, but the experi-ences and choices it affords us is, andno one knows this better than ourkids.Learning about money is something

all children should have access to, nomatter their nationality, socioeco-nomic background, religion orgender. It shouldn’t be a luxury, it’s aright! All we need as families, are sim-ple tools to get us started, that makepocket money management simplefor grown-up, and fun for children. The piggy-bank is dead. Long live the

piggy-wallet.

Filippo Yacob, Founder and CEO of @Pigzbe and @Primotoys, featured in Forbes30 under 30

Last week saw crypto and financeenthusiasts converge on New York forthe biggest event in the crypto

calendar - the Consensus Conference. Withover 5,000 in attendance this year, theannual conference had a markedly upbeatatmosphere as the crypto industryrelished the end of the “crypto winter.”Among several big announcements wasthe unveiling of an app from paymentsstartup Flexa which allows customers tospend crypto at major US retailers,including Whole Foods, Barnes and Nobleand Nordstrom.Bitcoin began the week with an

impressive surge above $8,000 to reachfresh 2019 highs. After a ‘flash crash’ onFriday sent it briefly back down to the$6,500 level, bitcoin recovered to tradearound the $8,000 mark once more.Altcoins saw enormous mid-week gains,with Ethereum surging over 30%, tradingaround the $250 mark at the time ofwriting.Last week saw Microsoft announce a

new project being built on the Bitcoin

blockchain. The open source project,named Ion, aims to utilize thedecentralized infrastructure of Bitcoin toallow networks to talk to each other. Ifsuccessful, the project will allow thenetworks of two companies e.g. Googleand AirBnB, to share users’ ID datawithout having complete control overthe information - a feature many willwatch closely as big tech comes underincreasing scrutiny for its use ofcustomer data.In tandem with Bitcoin’s spectacular

recovery, data from Google show thatBitcoin search interest has hit a 14-monthhigh. According to Google Trends, searchesfor “bitcoin” have hit highs not seen sinceFebruary 2018, when the cryptocurrencywas trading between $8,000 and $11,000. The CryptoCompare Digital Asset

Summit will take place in London on June12th. With keynote speaker Andreas M.Antonopoulos, the summit will featurepresentations from some of the key figuresin the space including Coinbase, Binance,UBS, and Nasdaq.

CRYPTOCOMPARE MARKET VIEW

Money in the Minecraft Age

Crypto markets soar aroundConsensus Conference

Banks have adoptedthe underlyingtechnology to

their advantage Did you know that Jermyn streetis actually the contraction of afamous politician’s name who

was born at number 87? JeremyCorbyn. Did you know that one of thecrows in the Tower of London is albino?Surely you know that there is only oneblockchain and that it uses moreelectricity than Iceland. And of course,you know that the blockchain is tooslow to be viable in commercial use.In fact, none of these is true. They are

all just myths.Myth: There is only one blockchain:

FALSE.There are many blockchains

currently in use today. The bitcoinblockchain is the most well-knownblockchain. There are numerous

variations of these blockchains andthere are a wide array of otherblockchain platforms and networks ofcomputers making up their ownblockchain. Myth: The blockchain uses more

energy than Iceland making itunsustainable. FALSE. The bitcoin blockchain currently has

over 10,000 mining nodes and they doindeed use a huge amount ofelectricity due to the way the networkimplements cryptography. But thereare a wide range of alternativesolutions for securing the data in ablockchain which do not use near thelevel of energy as the bitcoin protocl.Myth: Blockchain is too slow to be

viable for commercial use: FALSE.

The bitcoin Blockchain protocol isdesigned to have a max performanceof 7 transactions per second (tps)Ethereum today has a max of 20 tps.What is often missed is that there are anumber of new blockchain protocolsthat can handle much higher numbersof transactions: e.g. EOS can handle3,000 tps. There are plenty ofblockchain protocols that are fastenough for enterprise applications.Before you decide that there is no

practical use for blockchain, take thetime to get informed in a non-hypeand non-spin way.

Get in touch with usinfo@blockchainrookies.com / Twitter @igetblockchain

CRYPTO A.M. INDUSTRY VOICES

IT’S TIMEBLOCKCHAINMARKETINGGREW UP

distributed ledger systems with a keeninterest in emerging and developingmarkets. We believe the adoption ofblockchain and distributed ledgertechnology is going to accelerate ineconomies that currently lack theinfrastructural backbone we take forgranted in developed nations. Issuesaround identity verification and theconvergence of blockchain and IoT are ofhuge interest. Now that governments andindustry are beginning to see the benefitsof blockchain technology we believe theadoption of this technology is just aroundthe corner. It is exciting being at theforefront of a technology that challengesand tests the current status quo and welook forward to seeing how the industrydevelops.

For more information and case studies ofprevious work please visitwww.chainenable.com or email usdirectly at info@chainenable.com

Blockchainnetworking events areachieving new levels

of quality and quantity

Troy Norcross, Co-Founder Blockchain Rookies

BLOCKCHAIN MYTHSRobert Cooke, Co-Founder & CEO of

Chain Enable

systems architecture and backenddesign. Building financial products andinsurance platforms implementingmachine learning algorithms for anumber of large retail banks, healthcare

organisations and supermarkets such asCigna, Lloyds Bank and Bupa, long beforethe term FinTech and AI was coined.Chain Enable is focused on building

industrial grade blockchain and