Cats and Hot Dogs: Understanding the Core of Blockchain

To make blockchain a little easier to understand, I’m going to put it in a metaphor. Here we go:

Let’s say you love cats, and I love hot dogs. You run a hot dog business out of your kitchen. I rescue cats and care for them in my shelter.

We’re aware of each other’s product, but we don’t know each other or where the other conducts business.

You and I decide we want to trade one cat for one hot dog. We decide this is a fair trade.

You take a hot dog and drop it off at a location upon which we agree. I do the same with your future cat. After each exchange, we take our belongings and walk away.

No passersby can see the items we trade and or who we are. But they can see later that we agreed upon this fair trade and we’re satisfied with our results.

Get it? No?

Let’s try again…

Change is Good, Right?

Cultures have fixed ways in which they understand their society’s simple, everyday procedures. And, when there’s a disruption (and reinvention) in the schema of the path from points A to B, it may be met with confusion or intimidation.

However, through education and research, new solutions to old issues may be, in fact, credible.

Blockchain, for example, disrupts the processes that business use to interact with their customers on all sides. The concept of blockchain is the notion that the institutions we put in place to serve as our “middlemen” are all socially constructed; they can be changed.

A socially constructed system is one that changes across time and culture.

It’s clear to see that the ways different countries and cultures do business and handle money are diverse. For instance, India demonstrated what it looked like to be a cash-dominated society. Or in the 17th-century, colonists from England traded with the Native Americans items that had no monetary value in and of themselves. Now, Blockchain diminishes the need for third-parties in transactions.

The parties participating in the transactions don’t have to know each other or have a mutual ground on which they conduct business. They only need to trust the blockchain system.

The simple process is maintained through a self-maintained ledger which all participants can monitor and critique. As one party’s credibility fails, their admittance in the blockchain arena is re-considered or terminated.

It’s Time for Real-Talk

Although this is outside of what Western Culture can currently visualize, the technology around blockchain enables people to complete formal trades without a retailer in the way. Consumers go directly to the source rather than a distributor. The money and goods are being “deposited” directly into the places where they will ultimately end up.

Blockchain is also ideal for delivering product or results in a safe, prompt manner. The code for each transaction is added to the ledger and builds upon the rest. If people are trying to hack their way into the code, they will be met with public scrutiny. Currently, companies opt to keep their records private, but Blockchain makes transaction records available on everyone’s database. Errors would be caught within a matter of seconds, as the transactions happen instantaneously.

On a digital marketing scale, blockchain technology allows advertisers to show up in front of a highly relevant audience (and ONLY a highly relevant audience) within fractions of sections. To successfully remarket products to meet goals, businesses can temporarily tag their pages to remarket to their most promising leads.

Instead of only marketing to leads from a database, remarketing to users with incomplete conversions creates quick and effective marketing opportunities. This is most effective when users are further down the "marketing funnel", ready to take action after their decision.

The Bottom Line...

At first glance, programmatic marketing through blockchain is fixed and restrictive. You can’t negotiate or barter, you don’t have relationships with buyers, and ads must be fine-tuned to each consumer. But these rules essentially prevent scamming and unequal treatment. These guidelines allow interactions between businesses and customers to happen as quickly and safely as possible.

The core of blockchain's purpose is good, as it standardizes the market and expedites fair opportunities for everyone. Perhaps, once its issues are sorted out, this will be the new, innovative way in which people engage in their typical buying behaviors.