The BSV Global Blockchain Convention has just ended. Running from May 24 to 26 at the Grand Hyatt in Dubai, the convention addresses the need to educate individuals and businesses about how a scalable blockchain can be used to improve the world’s systems and usher in a new age of technology.
With over 120 speakers composed of professionals, experts and executives within the blockchain space, each day is packed with panels that discuss a world of good a scalable blockchain brings. Day 3 of the convention sees an interesting discussion about marketing and loyalty programs on blockchain.
The panel, moderated by BSV Blockchain Association Marketing Head Martin Coxall, features investment firm Oceanside Digital Assets President Chad Anderson, gaming platform Haste Arcade Co-Founder and CMO Joe DePinto, social marketplace Mijem Inc. Chief Strategy and Purpose Officer Phuong Dinh, and promotional marketplace TonicPow Co-Founder and CEO Luke Rohenaz.
Although loyalty programs have long been efficient strategies implemented in marketing campaigns, they transform into something more effective when done on a scalable blockchain. According to Anderson, who used to work for myspace.com as a strategic marketing consultant, while the basic concept of connecting the online world to the offline world remains the same, doing it on a blockchain is on a whole different level.
“One of the things, and I was there from the early days of launch parties, we would always connect the online world to the offline world… We’d have a strong presence at all of these different events where we’re a primary sponsor… We could pump the ads all the time to really make sure that anything that we’re a part of would be well-attended,” Anderson shared.
“That was kind of us ushering in from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. And now, being on the cusp of Web 2.0 to Web 3.0, it’s really interesting how some of the things that people think are new ideas, they’re not necessarily new. The main thing is that we’re doing it in a more decentralized manner now,” Anderson added.
Anderson explains that a proof of attendance protocol is similar to what they were doing before. But this time, attendees can earn loyalty points in the form of tokens and be rewarded for their participation in the event. Having this kind of reward system not only allows people to earn, but it is also an effective marketing strategy that makes users come back for more.
“You go on Instagram, you get a “like,” that’s like a dopamine hit. And that keeps you coming back. It keeps them wanting to post. With us, we’re using micropayments as that kind of dopamine hit where you play a game in our arcade; you make a leaderboard; you’re going to start getting these micropayments at fractions of a penny. Sent instantly, you get a notification on your phone, that becomes addictive,” DePinto explained.
Being able to send micropayments—very small amounts at a time—is only possible if transaction fees are cheap enough that it can hardly be felt. And this is only possible with the BSV Blockchain, which has restored the Bitcoin protocol to its original design, enabling limitless scaling.
At present BSV is averaging fees from 1/100 to 1/20 of a cent. Most recently, the BSV Blockchain broke world records by logging in 10 million transactions in a single day at 4GB blocks and throughput of 50,000 to 100,000 transactions per second (tps). And as the network scales, block size and throughput will increase significantly, while fees are reduced to almost next to nothing.
This is why micropayments will only work on a scalable blockchain. And this is also the reason why all kinds of data applications, which includes marketing and loyalty programs, can be innovated and flourish in their own respective fields. The network efficiency and ultra-low transaction fees are what makes it a highly effective and practical solution.
“The way I see blockchain, and specifically BSV, as it grows in utility, the ecosystem grows. It’s kind of like a correlation marketing program where once you own BSV, there’s more utility for it. It’s not only a financial token that you could have, but you can also use it for other applications like micropayments or there are games that are on the BSV chain or there are services like reviews like Britevue,” Dinh pointed out.
“That’s a reason why we’re actively not only providing our users BSV as a loyalty reward, but we’re looking to help expand the ecosystem because it’s very efficient when it comes to micropayments and a lot of other blockchain-related applications,” Dinh added.
According to Dinh, one of the benefits of using blockchain for loyalty programs is that “once you own it, you own it.” Dinh is pertaining to how centralized loyalty programs are in that companies and brands get to solely decide on the expiration and value of loyalty points.
For instance, with gas prices skyrocketing, gas company A can suddenly impose a rule stating that all points earned will only be worth half its original value. And when this kind of ruling takes effect, customers will not be able to do anything. But with blockchain, it is decentralized, and not one person or group of persons can just suddenly change the rules.
So again, “once you own it, you own it.” A loyalty programs on blockchain can also be a great way of solving the issue of customer retention that is plaguing big companies such as Netflix. They can use just a small fraction of its advertising and marketing budget on a loyalty program and send micropayments to subscribers every time they watch a movie, for instance. They can even partner with film or television outfits for this.
And because transactions live forever on the blockchain, subscribers will not lose access to their accounts or have their points expire. This is a big come on. Users can just keep saving their points for bigger rewards.
DePinto, who also co-founded mobile ordering and payment platform Barpay, gives another good example. It is currently working with review platform Britevue in encouraging customers to leave reviews on bars, restaurants and hotels they have patronized.
“We service several thousand bars, restaurants and hotels. Basically, with QR codes, the customers can scan to view the menu, order and pay. And the last piece of that is once you’ve had your experience, people would go and leave a review,” DePinto said.
“Since you’re getting the opportunity to earn micropayments for the reviews that you leave on these restaurants, so now, the customers are doing the marketing for the venues themselves in a way where they can earn based on legitimate content,” DePinto added.
And because a scalable blockchain continues to increase block size and throughput, it can act as a global database that can store countless numbers of transactions. This makes it possible for all kinds of other innovative executions—even partnering with different companies for loyalty programs.
“The fact that we’re putting loyalty points and things like this on a blockchain now, they can take new forms. They could be more useful than they were before. They can be interoperable with other companies. You can easily make a deal with some partner that is a really good compliment to you… You can redeem points over here and vice versa because we have a universal database that we can check it against. Whereas before, they were all independent systems,” Rohenaz revealed.
While the concept of rewarding people with tokens can essentially make customers do what businesses want them to do—whether it is leaving a review or playing a game—Rohenaz cautions that there still needs to be a strategy put in place. Otherwise, blindly paying people with tokens, no matter how small the amount, will just invite scammers.
Watch all three days of the BSV Global Blockchain Convention here.
Carolyn Coley is a blockchain reporter. She joined Smartereum after graduating from UC Berkeley in 2018.
