MicroStrategy Lightning Platform - Reimagining Online Advertising

One of the most interesting news in Bitcoin 2023 Conference was Microstrategy's Lightning Platform. In recent few years Michael Saylor has become one the important voices for Bitcoin. The way how he explains bitcoin makes sense to many. Not only was he able to educate people about bitcoin in an interesting manner, but he was also attracted interest from bigger companies. He has made a powerful case how companies can benefit from bitcoin. Since Saylor and Microstrategy first got involved in bitcoin, one of the main questions people had was whether MicroStrategy would start building bitcoin or crypto applications/solutions. Saylor response was that he is not interested in developing bitcoin or crypto applications. His explanation was that MicroStategy would focus on its core business, and bitcoin would remain an investment strategy, and they didn't see a need for getting involved in development of bitcoin applications/solutions. That answer was enough for me not to expect any crypto related development from MicroStrategy. It seems things have changed and Saylor saw value in building something bitcoin related.

I didn't expect anything new from Saylor's talk. Usually he repeats the same thing over and over. Bitcoin is great. Bitcoin awesome. Bictoin is magic. Bitcoin this, Bitcoin that. Lol. He is probably the most obsessed person with bitcoin on this planet. His dedication to the idea and loyalty to the network is worthy of respect. While there are many who talk about bitcoin, not many have demonstrated they are willing to go all in. Saylor has done that, and he can talk about bitcoin as much as he wants. What I didn't expect he would talk about was that MicroStategy is actually getting involved in building bitcoin applications or solutions. He has announced that MicroStrategy has been working on its Lightining Platform and will be working with companies to reimagine how they advertise their products using Satoshis. Now this is an interesting idea and beneficial experiment to pursue. However, changing the way ads are done is a super challenging task.

I dislike ads. I dislike commercials. I believe most of them are deceptions, manipulation, intrusion, and waste of time. But the fact remains that they work. They have worked for many years, and probably will continue to do so. Why else would companies spend billions of dollars in ads? Why would companies have separate budget for advertising? They must work. What Saylor is proposing is not a new idea, but something that is logical and makes perfect sense. However, human behavior doesn't always follow logic and I wouldn't be surprised if advertising research companies have spent a lot of money, expertise in studying human psychology and making ads work. Despite all this, I believe ads should be reimagined and there must be a better way, more honest and more useful one.

Saylor solutions for reimagining advertisement, web traffic, customer loyalty, and engagement is obviously bitcoin. In Saylor view lightning network will play a great role in bitcoin's future, just because it allows fast and cheap transactions which bitcoin's core network lacks. Saylor is suggesting that companies should set aside their money dedicated for ads and use the money as rewards to their users and customers. Again this is not a new concept. Many companies already have rewards, points, and loyalty programs that they try to rewards their customers based on how much they spend. Saylor's version of this concept is utilizing bitcoin lightning network and rewarding users and customers with Satoshis. He does make a great point, emphasizing that transactions in Sats over lightning network aren't expensive and they are fast. Companies wouldn't be able to do the same thing with fiat.

The lightning rewards system would have set amount of Sats for various actions. If a person visits a website may get Sats, if a customer buys a product gets more Sats back. If a customer writes a review on a product they purchased they get some Sats. Saylor admits something like this would work great with e-commerce platforms like Amazon. Maybe Amazon itself wouldn't benefit from it directly, but many of its merchants can implement such strategies to rewards their customers on Amazon's marketplace. Of course something like this wouldn't happen on Amazon without their approval. At this point I doubt Amazon would be interested in such changes. They already control the money flow in their marketplace and make money as a payment processor. Implementing anything bitcoin or crypto might not be in their best interest. Amazon is only one example. Other companies could utilize Microstrategy's lightning program as a direct to customer campaign.

There is a lot of potential in the rewards in Bitcoin as a replacement for advertisements. However, this will not be an easy task. Ads business is already monopolized big tech players. It is highly unlikely they would give up their market share or control so easily. Ultimately it will be people who decide how the future advertising will look like. After all they only work if people continue falling into these traps and spending their money.

Rewards its users and customers is a great way for companies to reinvent themselves as well. Especially, when they already are spending millions and billions in ads. There is no added cost to trying new ways of growing their business. But there are risk. What if new system doesn't work. This may result in losses for companies. Because of this many would probably watch and study if something like this would actually work and wait until others try. It is a very ambitious of MicroStrategy to try to come up with a solution for such a big problem. I do hope they are successful.

I always thought Hive has a great potential to reinvent ads. I still do. Rewards system is within Hive's DNA. Rewards is only one step towards more comprehensive solution. Being decentralized, having full ownership wallets, immutable database, fast and free transaction are all ingredients that could at some point result in creative solutions that will reinvent ads. We are not there yet. If anybody would do it, it would be either Bitcoin or Hive or another network that shares similar characteristics.