“We each have independent narratives, in terms of how we talk about Bitcoin, but we’re each part of the same team and I think we all agree that our objective here is to convert as many people to Bitcoin as possible.”
— Dan Held

Location: Zoom
Date: Friday, 19th June
Company/Project: Kraken
Role: Director of Business Development

The very early believers in Bitcoin tended to fall into two camps, the Libertarians who were drawn to the censorship resistance & self-sovereignty of Bitcoin and the tech-savvy developers who saw a new experimental technology that was the first to truly offer a distributed & decentralised digital money.

As Bitcoin has gained in value, it too has grown to appeal to audiences that don’t necessarily fit into these two camps. Fewer tech-savvy people have come to Bitcoin for ‘number go up’ more than the censorship resistance and decentralisation.

For these people, coming into Bitcoin can be hostile and confusing. The community is understandably frosty to those not willing to learn about the importance of holding their own keys, protecting their privacy and being self-sovereign and the software can be confusing and unintuitive.

For newcomers running a node is difficult, holding your private keys daunting and interacting with the community scary. So, improving both the UX and marketing of Bitcoin is key to attracting less technical people to the space.

In this interview, I talk to Dan Held the Director of Business Development at Kraken. We discuss the importance of easy user experience, how Bitcoin can be a daunting experience, if newcomers should hold their private keys and why marketing matters.

This episode’s sponsors:

Kraken - The best place to buy, sell & trade Bitcoin
BlockFi - The future of Bitcoin financial services
Sportsbet.io - Online sportsbook & casino that accepts Bitcoin
Casa - The leading provider of Bitcoin multisig key security.

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WBD236 Show Notes: https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/bitcoin-ux-marketing-with-dan-held

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