The Pot, Sex, and Gaming Coin Markets - Tough Sells
If you're relatively new to cryptocurrency/blockchain tech, you might be looking at all these shiny Kush, THC, SpankWire, SexCoin, GameWhatever coins, and be thinking, "These are huge market segments. This is a no-brainer."
That's what it is. A no-brainer. But not in a good way.
Now, I'm all for short term gains. You can throw a dart at a crypto listing and make those, this year. Great. You do you.
But as a part of a long-term portfolio?
Nah.
Why? Because they are replications of replications of bigger, more functional currencies. There is no compelling reason for industry-wide adoption. In fact, those markets get more diluted every day, weakening the positions of everyone involved.
They lack the value and network size of Bitcoin, the functionality of Ethereum, and the anonymity of Monero.
Even if one of the boutique SDRR (sex, drugs, rock-n-roll) coins makes it, for some inexplicable reason, it would take years. And that would mean one of them. Good luck figuring out which, in each field, has a long-term future.
Ask Crypt0Hoe if she'd prefer TitCoin over Bitcoin.
Figure out which dispensary wants which of the many Potcoins out there.
Your only real hope in the gaming market would be something that is tied to a game that becomes wildly successful. The next World of Warcraft, Minecraft, etc. Mana or Voxels might be a possible outlier. Way too soon to tell. Probably unlikely. But it at least remains a possibility.
The idea of a universal gaming, pot, or sex token is a pipedream.
For long-term growth, you might want to go meta, and look into something like SONM, which will receive the benefit of the gaming and movie markets by providing much needed data processing services for those industries. O.G. crypto (BTC, ETH, ZCash, etc.) are already welcome almost anywhere crypto is accepted. Reinventing the wheel is most unlikely, at this point.
I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
Unless something has the ability to expand far and wide across an industry, OR expand across multiple industries, I wouldn't touch it as far as a long term hold. There's too many widely used and established coins to see something else pop up and become mass adopted. Short term hodl, yes! These gimmicky little alt coins are great for that! They're money grabs. Thats why day traders love the shit coins. Long term, theres nothin in the SDRR section of alts that I would tie my money up in for more than a year- yet😉
I wish most of these new investors had the patience to hold something for a year. A month seems too long for a lot of these people.
I do like it when one of my exchanges has a button that says Buy POT. I take it literally, though.
With the growth of RPG type games and increased character interaction in the virtual world, I think that a universal gaming token could take off. There are already games, such as WoW, that utilize an economy and exchange for buying and selling of goods within the games themselves. So, in theory you could create a crypto that could be distributed and used universally...although I have a hard time believing that different platforms, and games would agree to use the same currency.
But as you mention, if it is tied to a game that takes off (I think of the Oasis from Ready Player One) then why not just use existing currencies that are already established. The market is already flooded with altcoins so it is probably best to wait it out to see which tokens take hold.
I'm also fairly new to the crypto world, so I could just be rambling...
Part of the fun of crypto. Your opinion is as valid as someone who's been doing this for years. The relative ease with which people can create a new token, and the potential upside, makes it more likely that everyone will launch competing tokens. Calling the next big game is harder than calling the next big crypto. But crypto in the Lightning Network arena are good candidates for universal adoption, I'd say.
Digibyte (which is actually a decent token, spec-wise) is used on private Minecraft servers, I think. But that was a drop in the bucket.
If it was easy, we'd all be rich already. ; ) Games on the blockchain are becoming a thing, too...
It's a lot to process.
I think we're in the early stages of all this stuff. Special "niche" currencies for pot & porn seem like a good idea, but nothing has really materialized yet. Potcoin with Dennis Rodman cheerleading the cause looks promising.
I think a lot of these industry specific coins lack the marketing teams they need to succeed. For instance cryptocurrency and porn seem like the perfect fit. Internet porn sites are bombarded with chargebacks from Visa & Mastercard. These amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars for industry leaders. Charge backs aren't possible with crypto, it's the perfect fit. The marijuana industry can't accept credit cards yet, again a perfect fit. A good marketing team is essential in bringing all the big players in an industry on board too.
Besides marketing, I think the average "normie" not into cryptocurrency has a hard time with the idea of signing up on an exchange, buying bitcoin, converting bitcoin into whatever sex or drug token they're looking for, then using said tokens.
I think niche tokens & currencies are just a little ahead of their time. Once people start adopting crypto and get comfortable using it, you'll probably see all kinds of businesses adopting token systems like Waves, & Ethereum to name a few and niche market coins will become more popular with atomic swaps. I think it's just a matter of ease of use & getting the general public comfortable using crypto.
Freakin' normies! Yeah, how many great things have withered on the vine by being ahead of their time.
I maintain that reward systems are going to be huge. But that there will be no single reward system coin. But they will be built upon existing platforms. From an investment standpoint, go meta.
'Pot' and 'Sex' (fun though they may be!) are too wide of a focus. CokeCoin vs. PepsiCoin, though... I'm still puzzled as to why this hasn't happened already, although I suspect the work/research has been done, to a degree. If for no other reason, because it would save companies who have rewards programs a few million a year.
I find Vice's token interesting, but I don't mess with it because I don't agree with everything they do, ideologically. Of course I feel the same about BoingBoing or any mainstreamish countercuture company.
Thank you for your insight, my d00d.
I think Burger King Russia did a rewards program on WavesPlatform and called it WhopperCoin. I'm guessing it hasn't caught on here yet because of some weird regulation or other that their lawyers have warned them against. Who knows I can only speculate. I agree though, blockchain and rewards programs seem like a perfect fit!
Damn, I forgot about that one.
All these U.S. companies seem to move in lock-step. I posit that many of them have done research/development work, but won't jump until some major company does. Then we'll see a flood.
Sadly, I think crypto is still too complicated for a lot of people. I know, to us, it's like email. But then again, a lot of people still struggle with email. App-based stuff like I assume BK-RUS did are probably going to solve that. They don't want to know what's under the hood.
They also might be afraid of failure, that is to say, to see their reward tokens on exchanges, and losing value. No reward without risk, though, as we all know.