Just as the Apple brand is to tech, McDonald’s is to burgers, Nike is to sneakers and Coke is to cola, so is the Bitcoin brand to cryptocurrency.
“Whoa… hold the phone!” you say. “Bitcoin isn’t a brand. It's a currency. Currencies aren’t brands!”
Well, that’s a traditional way of looking at it. And Bitcoin is anything but traditional.
Think of it this way: blockchain is a technology. Coins are an asset on the blockchain. Bitcoin is a brand that brings its unique selling proposition to blockchain.
To be clear, Bitcoin is not an ordinary brand. It’s what I call a User-Generated Brand (UGB). Because Bitcoin lacks a centralized brand owner or chief marketing officer, it is molded by a large ecosystem of foundation members, technologists, investors, miners, commentators, thought leaders, innovators, journalists and more. Nevertheless, as a UGB, the cumulative effect of its brand assets stand for something.
Still skeptical? Consider this:
- Bitcoin has a story centered around a movement to right the wrongs of centralized finance. And it has a founder who embarked on a hero’s journey to solve for it (more on that in a moment).
- It has cult-like brand qualities. After all, when was the last time you saw someone wearing a t-shirt with a dollar or euro symbol on it? Or see 12,000 people descend on a city like Miami to spend days doing nothing but talking about a currency’s evolution and future.
- It has an identity. The “₿” iconography is as ubiquitous nowadays as a thumbs-up emoji.
- It is synonymous with the category. People sneeze into Kleenex, not “facial tissues.” In prior decades we “Xeroxed” pages to make copies. Ask an outsider to name a cryptocurrency and they’ll say, “Bitcoin.”
- It has a premier marketplace position. Being a first-mover and
