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Junice Liew is Head of Digital Marketing at Overbit. She was kind enough to give Bitcoin Insider an exclusive interview from a marketing crypto's perspective. Check it out.
1. Junice, tell us about yourself, your role at Overbit?
I am the Head of Marketing for Overbit.com and it's my first birthday with Overbit next month! Woo Hoo and I am so excited with my journey at Overbit! :)
A little bit about myself, I have 15 years of media experience and 3 years ago, I took a leap of faith and joined the crypto space. I started my journey by being involved in an ICO (which didn’t take off - unfortunately), then joined a DEX and now have promoted myself to join a fast moving innovative derivatives trading platform - Overbit!
My key responsibilities at Overbit is to bring top-of-mind brand awareness amongst crypto and forex traders through content, social media and digital marketing communication by engaging these audiences across all marketing platforms. It is paramount for me to stay on top of the global crypto industry trends and make pertinent recommendations proactively.
I need to work closely with other departments on a day-to-day basis, create strategic relationships with influencers, partners and the community in this ecosystem to drive the company forward.
2. How would you describe work at Overbit in 3 words?
Exceptional. Stimulating. Two-way feedback.
3. How hard was it for you to conduct a career switch? How did you learn crypto and overcome the technical aspects?
Cryptocurrency is a very niche topic and is relatively new. So it is not as easy as traditional marketing roles where case studies are easily accessible for all to read and understand.
After a few hard knocks, long hours of reading, joining crypto forums/telegram chat groups and experimenting with crypto in real life, it made the learning process easier for me.
I concentrated on a few tier one press channels to obtain quality crypto news and feeds to be abreast of the latest happenings. I also used a demo account to understand further on trading features to build my confidence. The rest is practice, practice and more practice before jumping into a live trader.
So, what got me really excited about when I joined Overbit was the availability of a demo account for all who signed up. The demo account shows real-time pricing and traders are provided with 8 BTC and USDT$50K to practice their traders on.
Demo account on Overbit platform
I honestly do not think one can overcome the technical parts of crypto easily as it's a never-ending story. However, what I can do to overcome this is to work with the dev team and my bosses to ensure that I understand clearly the technicality parts and break it down to simple English when communicating to traders. In my opinion, there is no dumb question and there is no shame in asking, when in doubt!
4. What are the 2 things that most excite you about blockchain or crypto? Why?
a) Excited to see more countries adopting crypto.
Cryptocurrency is truly global and out of the 154 countries that Chainanalysis researched, only 12 had so little cryptocurrency activity that they were given an index score of zero. Crypto is indeed earning its name especially in developing countries as a medium of exchange.
Even banks like JP Morgan, big boys like MicroStrategy and Mastercard have been bitten by the Bitcoin bug. These global brands have found different ways to distribute money directly to consumers without relying on commercial banks as intermediaries and I believe more and more organisations will follow suit.
b) Excited to know that Bitcoin is an alternative for the future and challenging the traditional finance landscape.
Bitcoin is increasingly seen as the alternative finance model without a middleman and a system that locks us. It is exciting to see how convenient money transfers are now happening on the blockchain and the opportunities it is giving people from all corners of the world to transaction their finances.
With Bitcoin’s presence in the finance sector, this will hopefully motivate and incentivise the traditional finance sector to make improvements in their technology and finance service offerings.
True enough, we are starting to see traditional finance face some heated competition especially during this pandemic period as shared by DBS bank recently in Blockchain.News. More central banks are now engaged in some form of digital currency adoption with China topping the list as a pro-digital currency nation re-emphasising China’s commitment to becoming the world’s leader in digital currency advances.
5. What are the 2 things that always make Bitcoin have a bad name? Why?
a) Lack of regulations
They say that crypto is the wild wild west and due to crypto’s unregulated nature, governments have been slow when trying to catch up with cryptocurrencies. On top of that, given the complex nature of crypto and blockchain, it becomes harder for regulators to create legislation for them or even try to create enforcement around cryptocurrencies.
Furthermore, the anonymity and irreversibility of payments creates opportunities for criminal activities and scams to take place using cryptocurrency. Just like the recent Bitsonar ponzi scam that took place in August. The exchange deleted their social media channels, traders lost their funds and its main domain is no longer in use! It’s not surprising that with these kinds of scams tarnishes Bitcoin’s name and it's no wonder that Warren Buffet, the world’s third richest man does not believe in Bitcoin and has even referred to Bitcoin as “rat poison squared!”
b) Bitcoin is volatile:
Institutional investors often have a negative perception of bitcoin due to its unstable price movements.
Crypo is a roller-coaster ride and many traders have lost in leaps and bounds due to its volatility. Bitcoin, for example, jumped from around $1,000 plus in January 2017 to nearly $20,000 by the end of 2017, back down to $3000 plus in 2018 and is now hovering the low $10,000 plus and this trend applies across the entire crypto market!
What’s worse is, we are now seeing Bitcoin’s trading mirroring tech stock at the worst possible time. Reason being, there could be an overlap between equity sellers and digital currency sellers as shared by CoinDesk. Bitcoin tanked to $11,000 for the first time in September after breaking the $12,000 mark making investors grow in anxiety each passing day.
6. Which part of marketing in the crypto space excites you?
Crypto has the potential to be the fastest, most affordable, and most universal way to exchange value in this universe.
Crypto could also potentially help those in poor living condition be less costly. Harvard Business Review mentioned, blockchain-based payment systems are able to reach 1.7 billion people who are unbanked or underbanked (including 25% of U.S. households).
Crypto truly delivers a decentralised and equality of opportunities for all generations from generation Z all the way to baby boomers - regardless of age, race, religion or where you live. As long as you have a smartphone or an internet-connected device, you can trade crypto!
7. What do you think about the role of social media influencers in the crypto space? Is this a type of marketing you would use for Overbit?
Influencer marketing is important in the crypto space because crypto traders are less receptive to paid advertising as it has a one-way relationship between the brand and the consumer.
However, influencers usually have a community following them. The influencer shares his/her intent or review on a certain project to their community, and creates a relationship between the project and his community. The influencer basically builds brand loyalty and trust as he or she gives a project credibility.
A hardworking influencer will research a certain project properly, before deciding to share it broadly within the community. This makes the project more trustworthy and authentic and at the same time, the influencer gets rewarded for their efforts by the brand and most of the time, it's in affiliate marketing. Hence, it's a Win-Win for both the affiliate, their audience and the brand.
In fact, Overbit offers the most competitive affiliate program in the crypto industry because we respect our affiliates and want to honour all their efforts.
Overbit’s affiliate competitive program with commission calculator
8. What is your favorite cryptocurrency, the one with the most potential?
My favourite cryptocurrency is Bitcoin, which is also known as the father of all crypto. To me, it is the next alternative for the future due to its decentralised nature.
Bitcoin’s revolution is growing stronger. Even though Bitcoin was not the first to come up with a digital currency, it has been the most successful by history.
Bitcoin is now being accepted by a growing number of major retailers as a form of payment from coffee shops, to shopping malls to even beach goers! This is because Bitcoin cryptocurrency operates as a peer-to-peer network and its security is guaranteed by cryptographic algorithms instead of governmental institutions. I truly believe that the future is near where Bitcoin can serve everyone in this universe!
I am not a financial analyst nor can offer any investment advice, hence I am unable to tell u which cryptocurrency has the most potential. However, what I know is, I am engaged and am playing a part of this ecosystem which is an incredible revolution that is changing lives.
9. There's quite a mystery, however, surrounding the creator of Bitcoin. What do you think of Satoshi Nakamoto? Was it a real person or a team?
As we all know, Satsoshi Nakamoto is a pseudonym. This means, it could represent a man, a woman, or even a group of people and till today, no one really knows who Satoshi is.
My question is, does it really matter if we know who Satoshi Nakamoto is? It is the fruits of Satoshi’s creation i.e the creation of Bitcoin that we are enjoying now. The ecosystem that Bitcoin has created for money to transact independently in my opinion is more important than trying to solve the mystery of his identity.
Bitcoin has more action via its volatility - more than any other traditional currency can compete with and this creates enough havoc on the price of bitcoin. So, I am very comfortable for the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto to continue to remain anonymous. For me, I would rather put my efforts and concentration on the revolution that Bitcoin can bring to mankind and its future till the time comes when Satoshi’s real identity is revealed.
10. Do you think Bitcoin will remain the dominant cryptocurrency in the years to come? Or do you see the so-called 'filppening' coming soon?
The current flippening index by Blockchain Center is 67.7%. Honestly, no one can really look into the crystal ball and decide if Bitcoin filppening will happen.
However if that were to happen and Bitcoin no longer holds the number one position in market cap, it will be interesting to see what role Bitcoin will play and its relevance in the ecosystem when it is no longer the number one coin.
11. At the moment, Overbit supports trading in traditional cryptocurrencies, i.e. Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, Litecoin, NEO, Cardano, Bitcoin Cash, and EOS. What about the new DeFi craze? Do you plan to add support for such tokens as well?
Yes, DeFi is surely an additional source of demand for Ether, bringing in over 6% of the crypto’s supply according to a CryptoBriefing article but Ether on exchanges hit a six-month low, per Glassnode.
At Overbit, yes, we are seeing an increase in the number of traders taking positions on ETH/USD because of the expectation that ETH is being bought in order to facilitate DeFi participation. This trend is similar to the ETH pump in 2017 that was driven by ICO participation. During the current DeFi craze, we need to be extra vigilant in deciding on the inclusion of DeFi coins for our traders.
Ryan Selkis, founder of crypto data site Messari, shares a similar thought as per his recent tweet predicted an upcoming demise for DeFi, space which is mirroring to ICOs days.
It is understandable that we are still in the midst of evaluating the addition of DeFi tokens onto our platform as there are only a handful of positive tokens that have the potential. We definitely want to avoid tokens that bring a bad name or are scam projects on our platform, such as the most recent DeFi fraud, Yfdexf.Finance or even the drama with SushiSwap’s founder taking and returning funds.
Should we and when we do add in any DeFi tokens, we want to ensure that the tokens are of highest quality to protect the well-being of our traders - always!
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Who's Junice Liew?
Junice Liew is the Head of Marketing at Overbit.com and is an experienced marketer with demonstrated working history in the media, private education, blockchain and crypto industry.
Passionate about marketing, she is skilled in digital strategy and communications. Junice holds a Bachelor of Arts (Communications) Honors - First Class, from Charles Sturt University in Australia.
In her free time, she is committed to doing social work in the community and has a deep love for animals - both big and small.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the views of Bitcoin Insider. Every investment and trading move involves risk - this is especially true for cryptocurrencies given their volatility. We strongly advise our readers to conduct their own research when making a decision.