Tag: contentmarketing

Content Marketing More Prevalent Than Ever Creating Value With Content Is Key To Rise Above Internet Clamor

Content Marketing More Prevalent Than Ever. Creating Value With Content Is Key To Rise Above Internet Clamor

Given the life-changing events over the past three years, we’ve entered 2023 much wiser and more enlightened. The global population has experienced a technocratic tyranny never seen before, and never before has critical information been so readily available to everyone that brings truth, putting the spotlight on the evil doers of the world, historically and empirically. 

Thanks to the internet and the proliferation of media circumventing the cancel culture, many topics have come to light through content creation. One thing is for sure, the online world has expanded, and for many, it’s the only option to stay in touch with their loved ones and community, bringing a sense of cohesion and strength to the stricken. 

It’s also the best option to facilitate their business to derive income, and companies of all sizes and niches are taking notice. Life goes on no matter what, and we must focus on staying afloat in this crazy world. The latest message is “get the word out,” and content creation, aggregation, or content curation is the best way to do that. If you’re running a business, content marketing is crucial.

According to the latest research, 7.5 million blog posts are published daily, with around 600 million blogs hosted on WordPress, Tumblr, and Google’s Blogger. Moreover, blogging is considered a popular content marketing strategy, with 81% of consumers trusting the information in blogs. Data also shows 61% of online consumers in the US have purchased products based on recommendations from a blog. 

It’s also reported that 75% of people never scroll past the first page of search results, and 80% ignore Google ads. With 82% of marketers reported to be actively using content marketing in 2021 (an increase of 70% from the previous year), the question is, how can you get your content to rise above the noise?
 
The usual scenario involves finding 'How To' manuals and trying to find 'hacks' or 'shortcuts' that will get your content noticed. A content creator’s post, video, or meme goes viral, and tons of copycats appear for the next few months. They never do better than the original.
 
For example, the original Old Spice campaign video resulted in over 55 million Youtube views and was copied thousands of times. Sesame Street was one of the copycats, resulting in five times fewer views than the original.
 
So if Sesame Street, with multi-millions of dollars for the best production resources, can't come close to topping the original video, how will you and your small business do it? There are better ways to produce content than copying. Below are five tips on delivering real value in your content.

The WIIFM Formula 

A marketing acronym that’s been around for years is WIIFM which means, "What's in it for me?" but we turn the formula over. Your content must focus on 'What's in it for THEM, not YOU. (WIIFT) That's when people will read your content. 

Too often, entrepreneurs write self-serving content. It's like going into a pub and shouting out how great you are, your latest accomplishment, and all the reasons you are God's gift to the world. But that is what many brands do when they only write about themselves and how excellent their products are on social media and their blog.

It is better to put yourself in your target customer’s shoes, focus on what they need and care about, and then write content that addresses that.

 
Image source: Markethive.com

Know Your Target Market 

To create WIIFT content, you must understand your target customers. Building customer personas will help with this. The main characteristics of a buyer persona that need to be identified are as follows: 

  • Their location(s)?
  • Their values?
  • Their key demographics (job title, age range, etc.)? 
  • The sort of content they are consuming currently?
  • Their pain points?
  • How will your offer resolve those pain points?

This blog will help you create a detailed buyer persona to ensure your marketing campaign is streamlined and customer-focused. 
 
Show Real Expertise 

One of the main reasons your content may not be resonating is when you are producing mirage content. Content that replicates what everyone else in your field is putting out. In most cases, this happens when the person writing the blog post has yet to gain real expertise in doing what they are writing.
 
If you sell race car parts, your website's blog posts should be written by someone that knows about race cars (Perhaps they build the cars and race them on the weekend?) It’s not a good idea to have some junior copywriter you hired paraphrase a bunch of content they saw from a basic Google search.  

The development of expertise takes time. Either you or whoever writes your content has to:

  • Do a lot of reading and researching.
  • Ask a lot of questions.
  • Invest time doing the thing that is being written. 
  • Be willing to experiment.
  • Fail often. 

You will need to find a way to resolve any lack of expertise in your subject matter. You could hire or interview writers who are subject matter experts. Or you could invest the time to become an expert yourself.
 
 
Image source: Motocms.com 

Be Focused on Customer Intent, not Traffic Volume.

Many companies go after the ‘Top of the Funnel’ (TOFU) keywords. These have tons of search volume and organic traffic but are less likely to convert sales. Additionally, these keywords are probably going to be competitive. It will be highly challenging and costly to rank on page one of Google.
 
The opposite approach converts much better. Begin with ‘Bottom of the Funnel’ (BOFU) long-tail keywords. They may have just a fraction of the traffic but are much easier to rank for, and the chances of them converting to customers are much more significant. 

For example, the most popular post on Hubspot’s site is “how to make an animated gif.” How many of those people are looking for complex CRM or marketing automation software? Probably not very many.
 
You will find Long-tail keywords to target using SEO tools like Ahrefs or SEMRush.
 
Also, some excellent keyword research tools are completely free and include:

  • Reddit 
  • Quora
  • Pinterest
  • Youtube
  • Twitter
  • Amazon 

Additionally, social media can reveal how your target customers feel and talk about your product and your competitor’s products. This will let you get ideas on what content to write next and how to present it in a way most likely to resonate with them. 

Don’t Try to Go Viral. 

When you try to go viral, you are taking part in the marketing equivalent of purchasing lotto tickets. You are basing your strategy on something out of your control, can’t be repeated, and most likely will not happen.
 
For example, if you sell garden shovels and rakes, the chances of your video about the best fertilizer to use in your tulip garden going viral will probably be low.

The problem with “viral content” is that you are looking for a one-hit-wonder. If you were to get lucky and one of your videos takes off, the odds of it leading to a ton of sales and being repeatable over and over are very low.
 
A more proven strategy is to regularly create ‘How-To Videos’ week after week, showing your company’s expertise and helping your target customers solve real problems. These videos may only result in a few hundred views each, but they build your reputation and solve a real problem for your target customers. 

As an example, Minaal produces carry-on luggage for minimalist travelers. They aren’t focused on delivering viral pranks. Instead, they do an excellent job of making how-to videos related to packing light.

Below is a video presented by Thomas Prendergast, the CEO, and Marketing Director of Markethive, with some fundamental technical steps for creating a blog, specifically on the Markethive platform. 

Where Do You Start?

If you are just starting, check out this detailed beginner guide. It outlines how to start blogging in five easy steps. When you are ready to start your blog, Markethive is your next step. You can utilize the most comprehensive broadcasting platform with blogging tools, email auto-responders, etc.,  all under one umbrella, along with a built-in meritocratic community of entrepreneurs. 

With Markethive’s internal wallet activation imminent, the new dashboard integration with its multiple newsfeed interface is currently in development. This unprecedented concept is unique to Markethive and integral to the objectives of the content marketer/entrepreneur in broadening reach and building their sphere of influence. Be sure to stay tuned for updates and implementations going forward. 


Image source: Markethive.com

So apart from the conceptual technology integration of intuitive tools fundamental to disseminating information of any content marketing strategy, you need to create content that delivers real value and invest time in understanding your target market. It will require learning about your target customers, talking to them, and practicing humility and empathy. 

Moreover, creating quality content takes time and effort but will pay off in the long run. Make sure your content is well-written and contains accurate information. Using visuals such as images or videos can enhance the value of your content. Whatever your approach, make sure you keep your content interesting and relevant to your audience. If you do this, you'll be well on your way to success in the world of content marketing.

 

 

Editor and Chief Markethive: Deb Williams. (Australia) I thrive on progress and champion freedom of speech. I embrace "Change" with a passion, and my purpose in life is to enlighten people to accept and move forward with enthusiasm. Find me at my Markethive Profile Page | My Twitter Account | and my LinkedIn Profile.

 

 

 

 

 

Adapted from Markethive’s original article

 

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

How To Increase Your Sphere Of Influence In Markethive

How To Increase Your Sphere Of Influence In Markethive 

 

We have a lot to be grateful for within Markethive. It’s like stepping out of the rat race into an oasis of humanity at its best. As an inbound marketing, business-based platform with an inherent entrepreneurial spirit, we have all the tools to get our message out to the whole world. We have a social media interface with a collaborative ethos rarely experienced on legacy social media. 

We are starting to see new integrations in the blogging section in preparation for the customized, more intuitive interface and dashboard of Markethive and, of course, the Markethive Wallet that will facilitate the Merchant accounts for members as well as personal transactions, the Vault, etc. 


Image: Updated feature above all Blogs

As shown above, the new-look Blogcasting Hub is located at the top of all blogs in the system. Blogcasting is a term introduced by Markethive and is an enhanced broadcasting system. In the traditional broadcasting sense, only the people who physically subscribe to your blog or newsletter are usually notified of your updates via email. 

With this blogcasting system, your social networks are informed of your blog as and when you publish them. What this means is the potential reach is into the millions.  

For example, If I subscribe to your blog and have 20,000 followers across all my social media accounts, and you have 15,000 subscribers each with a similar following, your blogs have now been potentially seen by around 300,000,000 people. These are people who are not directly subscribed to you. It is known as a “reach” and is extremely powerful. 

 

WP Plugin Article Import

When you use the Markethive blogging system, your content can easily be distributed to your and others’ WordPress sites who subscribe to you. WordPress has been around for years and is a renowned world leader in Blogging platforms. 

It will be integrated into the new Page Making system where all member accounts will receive a WordPress site and be assigned an email for both POP email and default website with an option to assign it to your WordPress or Markethive capture page. 

Markethive’s “Blogcasting” is an excellent solution to the long-term problem of getting the word out legitimately to people who want to hear what you have to say. Blogging is the purest essence of inbound marketing and the core of what Markethive does. 


Image: Inbound Content Marketing Wheel

 

Blog System In Your Storefront Niche

Markethive has successfully combined all the technical and tactical aspects and requirements into one system and overcame the obstacles to make blogging a group process. You can mentor your new associates or offer your customers ongoing support through your Storefront Group. 

Connecting with them through writing blogs and articles consistently with exciting and relevant information will create an authoritative presence, perhaps meet a customer’s need and provide a solution that maybe can’t be recognized in a short advertising message. It can start conversations and is an excellent way to be invited into the consumers’ hearts and minds. 

It helps us be more human in everything we do and in every engagement. It’s about building relationships and connecting at an authentic and genuine level. The most human company wins, and the technology should be used to help your company be more compassionate, receptive, fascinating, and valuable.

Markethive’s Inbound Marketing platform delivers a blogging system built for the beginner, sophisticated for the intermediate, and a compelling platform that advanced professional bloggers will appreciate. The system is designed to develop a complete blog system effortlessly, and easily set up to be the engine that powers your WordPress blogs. 


Image: Drop-down menus on Blogging Platform

 

Blog Subscribe 

The Blog Subscribe feature is where other Markethive members can subscribe to your blog by checking the status of any medium displayed in the drop-down menu. Other sites are to be added, subject to alignment and collaboration of the parties in question going forward. 

When they subscribe (and the potential is 1000s of them), your blog posts are automatically posted to their newsfeeds, email, and any social media accounts they’ve checked. This provides a downstream of subscribers, fellow entrepreneurs at Markethive, who expose their connections to your message; they lift you, increase your popularity, and build more outstanding branding. 

When your blogs are shared and consequently clicked on, they move up in the search rankings. Your readers will want others to know if you're providing quality content. Of course, the only way to make sure your blogs contribute to your website’s popularity is to create unique content, provide answers for visitors, and then share your blogs wherever you can. 

Through the News Feed and Blogcasting Hub, you can promote any products and services globally with a reach into the billions. That is because when people do searches, if the content on your blog is what they are after, they will find you. A very high percentage of the traffic is non-member-related, so many of the people you address on your blog do not even belong to the site.

 
Blog Swipe

The Markethive blog system allows you to make your content available to all members when set on Public upon publishing your blog. The other options are privacy, comments, and swiping are to your friends only, or just to members of all the Groups you belong to, or a selection of them or just one (your choice). You can also set it to Private so no one can swipe your blog.

Why? There are many sound reasons for this.

Curating: 

Content curation is the process of sorting through the vast amounts of content on the web and presenting it in a meaningful and organized way around a specific theme. The work involves sifting, sorting, arranging, and publishing information. Markethive offers features to the groups you create and is the perfect blogging platform. 

The option allows others to reproduce your work with your permission and automatically take an exact copy of your blog to their Markethive Blog System. WordPress plugin enables your blog articles massive syndication to other Markethive members' WordPress blogs.

Simply set up a Curating Group for yourself and Swipe the blogs in Markethive as a collection of content you may want to use in your publications. The new Markethive interface will house a newsfeed specifically for curation to intuitively organize and further our reach. 

Proofing: 

You may have a group of members who want to edit, add, or rewrite your content. It is an active phenomenon in Markethive, offering mentorship to people keen to learn the art of writing and blogging, advancing their presence. 

You may get critiques when you produce a blog, so I just offer them to swipe it, edit and change it as they see fit, and then let me know. If I like it, I swipe it back. It’s all about perpetual learning and the ability to express yourself within a collaborative culture. 

The ability to swipe a Blog makes it so much easier to get started, and new bloggers go from poorly and rarely produced blog posts to 1 or 2 dynamic and excellent on-topic blog posts daily. In other words, thanks to the collaborative culture and mentorship, Markethive is now churning out a new breed of wonderful and dynamic bloggers. 

Cocktails: 

A Markethive feature allows you to create unlimited groups, each with a different cocktail of content curated, aggregated, or from multiple group memberships. So the options to produce unique content for unlimited WordPress blogs controlled from within Markethive are unlimited.


Image: Blogcasting Infographic

 

Ecosystem For Entrepreneurs With Respect

Markethive is blockchain-driven, being integrated on the Solana Blockchain. The Markethive coin is mined when members utilizing the platform as the system rewards you with the Hivecoin Token for using the platform as intended. 

It’s important to note that excessive non-productive actions and engagement for the sole purpose of accumulating the token are not rewarded. Measures have been put in place for fraudulent behavior, which is considered toxic for the professionalism of the platform.  

With all members' creative content in mind, distributed, peer-to-peer data, communications, broadcasting, and marketing foundation are advantages. With distributed decentralized cloud servers, the likelihood of a data crash, central server failure, hacking, and political unrest is heavily mitigated, delivering an extremely stable platform for each subscriber on their merit.

 

Another Advantage Coming

Blogcasting is a Blogging Broadcasting System introduced and enhanced by Markethive. When you use the Markethive blogging system, your content can easily be distributed to your and other WordPress sites. 

Markethive has also built into the system the ability to register your other social network accounts, with more being added as we move forward with the new interface. You can subscribe to your blogs and others, therefore literally distributing content to a vast reach into the billions. 

The added advantage is the Bounty Program that is currently in the works. This means you will be rewarded for registering all your separate accounts through the Markethive platform. Subscribing and following the many Markethive social media accounts will qualify you for the Infinity Bounty Program. 

CEO of Markethive Thomas Prendergast explains the workings and benefits of the upcoming Infinity Bounty Program. 

Regardless of your motivation and drive, Markethive will add to your objectives, broaden your reach, and build your sphere of influence further and more significant than anything before has even attempted to do.

The moment you join Markethive, you have an instant setup of your own “Viral Blog” ready for you to begin posting content and marketing your business, product, service, or even personal content. You’ll be up and running the moment you set up your account! Markethive nurtures the Rise of the Entrepreneur with the Divine Vision to put a great future in your hands.

 

ecosystem for entrepreneurs

 

 

Also published @ BeforeIt’sNews.com https://beforeitsnews.com/promotional/2022/04/how-to-increase-your-sphere-of-influence-in-markethive-3034.html

 

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

What is cryptocurrency?

What is cryptocurrency?

 

Bitcoin is a form of cryptocurrency 

Cryptocurrency is a form of digital money that is designed to be secure and, in many cases, anonymous. It is a currency associated with the internet that uses cryptography, the process of converting legible information into an almost uncrackable code, to track purchases and transfers. Cryptography was born out of the need for secure communication in the Second World War. It has evolved in the digital era with elements of mathematical theory and computer science to become a way to secure communications, information and money online. The first cryptocurrency was bitcoin, which was created in 2009 and is still the best known. There has been a proliferation of cryptocurrencies in the past decade and there are now more than 900 available on the internet. Here's everything you need to know about cryptocurrencies. 

How do cryptocurrencies work? 

Cryptocurrencies use decentralised technology to let users make secure payments and store money without the need to use their name or go through a bank. They run on a distributed public ledger called blockchain, which is a record of all transactions updated and held by currency holders.

Units of cryptocurrency are created through a process called mining, which involves using computer power to solve complicated maths problems that generate coins. Users can also buy the currencies from brokers, then store and spend them using cryptographic wallets. Cryptocurrencies and applications of blockchain technology are still nascent in financial terms and more uses should be expected. Transactions including bonds, stocks and other financial assets could eventually be traded using the technology.  

What are the most common cryptocurrencies? 

  • Bitcoin:
         Bitcoin was the first and is the most commonly traded cryptocurrency to date.  The currency was developed by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009, a mysterious figure who developed its blockchain. It has a market capitalisation of around $45 billion as of July 2017. 
  • Ethereum:
         Developed in 2015, ethereum is the currency token used in the ethereum blockchain, the second most popular and valuable cryptocurrency. Ethereum has a market capitalisation of around $18bn as of July 2017. However, ethereum has had a turbulent journey. After a major hack in 2016 it split into two currencies, while its value has in recent months reached as high as $400 but crashed briefly to as low as 10 cents.
  • Ripple:
         Ripple is another distributed ledger system that was founded in 2012. Ripple can be used to track more kinds of transactions, not just of the cryptocurrency. It has been used by banks including Santander and UBS and has a market capitalisation of around $6.3 billion.
  • Litecoin: 
    This currency is most similar in form to bitcoin, but has moved more quickly to develop new innovations, including faster payments and processes to allow many more transactions. The total value of all Litecoin is around $2.1 billion.

Why would you use a cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrencies are known for being secure and providing a level of anonymity. Transactions in them cannot be faked or reversed and there tend to be low fees, making it more reliable than conventional currency. Their decentralised nature means they are available to everyone, where banks can be exclusive in who they will let open accounts.  As a new form of cash, the cryptocurrency markets have been known to take off meaning a small investment can become a large sum over night. But the same works the other way. People look to invest in cryptocurrencies should be aware of the volatility of the market and the risks they take when buying.

Chuck Reynolds


Marketing Dept
Contributor
Please click either Link to Learn more about -Bitcoin.

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Why the feds took down one of Bitcoin’s largest exchanges

Why the feds took down one of Bitcoin’s largest exchanges

Tracing Mt. Gox’s stolen coins led feds to Alexander Vinnik

  This week, one of Bitcoin’s largest and most notorious coin exchanges

was brought down by law enforcement — and police and prosecutors are now beginning to explain why. On Thursday, the Department of Justice unsealed an indictment against Alexander Vinnik — thought to be the operator, or one of the operators of Bitcoin exchange BTC-e — charging him with 21 counts of money laundering and other related financial crimes. The counts range from operating an unlicensed money transmittal business to a variety of money laundering charges, including laundering associated with ransomware payouts and a theft from the now-defunct Mt Gox exchange. More generally, the indictment paints BTC-e as a hub of criminal activity, laundering the proceeds of everything from drug trafficking to ransomware attacks.

As some suspected, Vinnik’s alleged crimes go beyond just operating the exchange. Feds believe he played a role in the theft of more 800,000 bitcoin — about $400 million at the time — from Mt. Gox, a staggering loss that ultimately shuttered the exchange. According to the indictment, 530,000 of those bitcoin ended up passing through wallets controlled by or associated with Vinnik, although his role in the larger scheme remains unclear.Vinnik’s alleged crimes go beyond just operating a Bitcoin exchange

Vinnik himself is in custody, arrested while on vacation in Greece, but the Bitcoin world is still sorting through the larger implications of his arrest. BTC-e was one of the last major exchanges outside the reach of conventional finance, and now that it’s gone, it’s unclear what might replace it. There are many legitimate uses of Bitcoin, but Bitcoin transactions have also become essential for online crime — whether it’s ransomware or Silk-Road-style online marketplaces. There will continue to be demand for exchanges like BTC-e, and ____. With feds directly targeting exchanges that don’t play by the book, the split between the two halves of Bitcoin is becoming starker and starker.

BTC-e, founded in 2011, always stood out as an anomaly among the major Bitcoin exchanges. Even a cursory look at BTC-e flagged it as a little strange. “Their exchange prices always seemed weird and out of line with every other exchange, and I had wondered why,” Matthew Green, a professor at Johns Hopkins University told The Verge in an email.

Nicholas Weaver wrote at Lawfare that BTC-e was noted for its “sketchy ownership and control.” The exchange was supposedly located in Eastern Europe, but there were no clues as to who ran it — until now.300,000 bitcoin from Mt. Gox went to wallets tied to “BTC-e administrative accounts” But the big surprise in the indictment is how closely tied BTC-e is to a massive theft at Mt. Gox, one that eventually bankrupted the exchange in 2014. Founded in 2010, Mt. Gox dominated the Bitcoin world for years, at one point processing 80 percent of all bitcoin-to-currency transactions. Mt. Gox first suffered a multimillion-dollar theft in June 2011. When the exchange collapsed in 2014, the equivalent of nearly half a billion dollars was unaccounted for.

On Wednesday, in the wake of the arrest of Vinnik, WizSec published a blogpost presenting the findings of an investigation into the Mt. Gox thefts that they have apparently been preparing for years. According to WizSec, the Mt. Gox hot wallet private keys were stolen sometime in 2011, and the hacker (or multiple hackers) continued to steal bitcoin through 2012 and 2013. The bitcoin were laundered through wallets controlled by Alexander Vinnik. The indictment claims that 300,000 bitcoin were stolen from Mt. Gox went directly to three connected BTC-e accounts “directly linked” to “BTC-e administrative accounts” that only BTC-e admins and operators could have had access to.

At least one of the accounts — under the name “Vamnedam” — was controlled by Vinnik and “others known and unknown.” (The “others known” are either not named in the indictment or have been redacted from the published document.)Many of the charges allege more straightforward money laundering" More bitcoin from the theft were sent to other Mt. Gox wallets and wallets at a third exchange — the now-defunct Tradehill, which operated out of San Francisco, California. From there, they eventually ended up at BTC-e, in an account that was directly controlled by Vinnik. WizSec also claims that the wallets that laundered Mt. Gox coins also handled “coins stolen from Bitcoinica, Bitfloor and several other thefts from back in 2011 and 2012.”

It’s not clear whether Vinnik was directly involved in the Mt. Gox theft, or how close he is to any of those previous thefts, or even the CryptoWall ransomware hackers whose funds he is accused of laundering. But when it comes to Mt. Gox, at least, BTC-e’s proximity to the theft is fairly suspicious.“Anybody who thought about this for a second understood that law enforcement was working on a case against BTC-e" While the Mt. Gox allegations are the most eye-catching, many of the charges that brought down BTC-e allege more straightforward money laundering. The very first count listed in the indictment is for operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business: a criminal charge based on failing to register with FinCEN, an intelligence network that’s mandatory for all financial companies dealing with US customers.

Participating in FinCEN comes with a range of requirements, from registration to internal anti-money laundering programs. Since 2013, it’s been clear that Bitcoin exchanges had to follow those same rules, and for the most part, exchanges have complied — and prosecutors haven’t been shy about filing charges against services that don’t. In recent years, BTC-e has been the largest Bitcoin exchange not registered with FinCEN, a distinction that made it an obvious target for law enforcement, even without Vinnik’s alleged Mt. Gox involvement. “Anybody who thought about this for a second understood that law enforcement was working on a case against BTC-e,” said Jerry Brito, executive director of Coin Center. “The question was just whether the government would catch them.”“designed so that criminals could effect financial transactions under multiple layers of anonymity”

Where other counts in the indictment focus on money transfers linked to theft and ransomware, the first two — operation of an unlicensed money transmitter and conspiracy to commit money-laundering — focus on the technological capabilities of BTC-e itself, claiming that the exchange had a “criminal design.” “BTC-e’s system was designed so that criminals could accomplish financial transactions with anonymity and thereby avoid apprehension by law enforcement or seizure of funds,” the indictment says, pointing out that BTC-e only required “a username, password, and an email address,” unlike “legitimate payment processors or digital currency exchangers.” The indictment also points to suspicious usernames like “ISIS,” “CocaineCowboys,” “blackhathackers,” “dzkillerhacker,” and “hacker4hire” as additional support for the money-laundering allegations.

The language in the indictment about BTC-e’s “criminal design” mimics the indictment against Liberty Reserve — an anonymous currency service taken down by law enforcement in 2013 — which also accused the online exchange of having a “criminal design” and a system “designed so that criminals could effect financial transactions under multiple layers of anonymity.” (The Liberty Reserve indictment also took the time to point out that account names on the site included “Russia Hackers” and “Hacker Accounts.”) BTC-e’s website claimed that they required customers to provide proof of identity — namely, a scanned ID card and a scanned utility bill or bank statement — and forbid any US customers, letting them off the hook for FinCEN registration. But neither turned out to be true, according to the indictment.“Exchanges will go one of two ways. Either they’ll clean up their act… or they’ll go fully underground.”

Now that BTC-e is down for good, it could have a profound impact on the criminal ecosystem more broadly. BTC-e handled about 5 percent of total Bitcoin transactions, but recent research found that as much as 95 percent of ransomware cashouts happened through the platform. With most comparably sized exchanges already registered under FinCEN, the takedown could make it both harder and riskier for criminals to cash out — something law enforcement seems to be counting on. In the same Lawfare piece, Weaver says he thinks taking down BTC-e “will probably prove more important than the AlphaBay and Hansa takedowns” in fighting online crime. For Bitcoiners less invested in law enforcement’s war on dark web marketplaces, the lesson is a more ambiguous one. Cornell professor Emin Gun Sirer says the focus on FinCEN compliance could lead to a lasting split in Bitcoin markets, as exchanges face the choice of whether to comply with US government demands.

“Exchanges will go one of two ways,” Sirer says. “Either they will clean their act, by first shopping for the most lenient jurisdictions and complying with relevant KYC/AML laws, or they'll go ‘fully underground,’ and operate with no rules, behind Tor and other anonymous communication technologies. The most colorful drama ahead will involve exchanges, such as Bitfinex, that operate in the gray zone, where they seem to neither comply with relevant laws nor go fully underground.” For a technology with a surrounding community built on libertarian ideas, that may be a difficult pill to swallow. But as the past week has made clear, those that don’t will be taking a very serious risk.

Chuck Reynolds


Marketing Dept
Contributor
Please click either Link to Learn more about -Bitcoin.

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden