{"id":6057,"date":"2020-08-10T10:16:30","date_gmt":"2020-08-10T14:16:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/?p=6057"},"modified":"2020-08-10T10:26:12","modified_gmt":"2020-08-10T14:26:12","slug":"grayscale-ad-digital-currency-history-of-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/2020\/08\/10\/grayscale-ad-digital-currency-history-of-money","title":{"rendered":"Why Grayscale&#8217;s New Digital Currency Ad Could Bring Crypto Investing To Millions"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"row vc_row wpb_row vc_row-fluid\"><div class=\"jeg-vc-wrapper\"><div class=\"wpb_column jeg_column vc_column_container vc_col-sm-12\"><div class=\"jeg_wrapper wpb_wrapper\">\n\t<div class=\"wpb_text_column wpb_content_element \" >\n\t\t<div class=\"wpb_wrapper\">\n\t\t\t<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>This morning Grayscale<\/strong>, the world\u2019s largest provider of cryptocurrency investment vehicles, temporarily turned its attention away from hoovering up the supply of Bitcoin to focus on arguably the most intractable problem in all of crypto: getting your stubborn friends and family on board.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Last Friday Grayscale founder and CEO Barry Silbert teased a massive ad buy on Twitter with the intention to \u201cbrrring crypto to the masses\u201d \u2014 and this morning he delivered, with spots on CNBC, MSNBC, FOX, and FOX Business, among others. The Grayscale <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@GrayscaleInvest\/4836e74da271\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">blog<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, meanwhile, pitches the ad, titled <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The History of Money<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, as:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote align-center\"><p>\n<i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cA wakeup call that people everywhere should seize what we feel is a once in a generation opportunity that digital currencies may present.\u201d<\/span><\/i>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Our new commercial debuts TODAY&#8230; Trust us: AUDIO ON! <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/GoGrayscale?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#GoGrayscale<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/hPhUgp7HiY\">pic.twitter.com\/hPhUgp7HiY<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Grayscale (@Grayscale) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Grayscale\/status\/1292808728253784065?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 10, 2020<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On paper that sounds easy enough, but the practicalities are grimmer \u2014 just about every crypto enthusiast is familiar with the scoffs, the furrowed brows, and the incredulous stares when discussing crypto with family members during the holidays. To be successful, this campaign would have to fundamentally recalibrate the average investor\u2019s opinion, one that remains generally apprehensive, on an asset class barely more than a decade old.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Slowly at first, then all at once: the bankruptcy of denial<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In some respects, the timing seems right. Powerful people are finally starting to Get It.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The market makers, from their perches atop the economy, are now aping the same arguments that Bitcoin acolytes have pounded into the table for years: <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">it\u2019s a hedge against inflation <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">says Paul Tudor Jones; <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">it\u2019s digital gold<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, echoes Tom Jessop. Consider the micro-history written into the forced smile on Jamie Dimon\u2019s face \u2014 in just a few months his smug smirk when talking about Bitcoin evolved into mopey resignation; cryptocurrency, he finally admitted, had a real use and a real future.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But while the good folks down in lower Manhattan are coming around, the same cannot be said for Main Street investors, who have been fed a thin diet of skepticism on digital assets by financial gurus.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yet early harbingers of inflation are flashing warning signs; corporatism prances naked and unashamed through the capitol; a President is openly discussing defunding two of America\u2019s most heavily relied-upon social safety nets, Medicare and Social Security. Central bank balance sheets collectively arc parabolic. Unemployment remains in the double digits. Macroeconomic conditions daily concoct new ways to demonstrate the need for cryptocurrency&#8230; and yet <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/2020\/08\/03\/crypto-meet-fiat-coffee\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">barely a quarter<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of Americans are inclined to buy Bitcoin.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thus, the space is left with a stubborn roadblock to mass adoption: those populations which could most benefit from Bitcoin as it develops into a true store-of-value \u2014 the middle-class savers and investors searching for a bulwark against inflation and uncertainty \u2014 are among the least likely to understand the cryptocurrency asset class, let alone know how or where to buy it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If the general population is going to benefit from buying crypto, they need to know what it is. If the Grayscale ad is going to achieve Silbert\u2019s stated goals, it will have to do more than advertise \u2014 it has to educate.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The exceptionalism of contrarianism<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Though the task seems monumental, there is at least one successful historical precedent. Nearing the end of 1948, the United States grappled with similarly bleak conditions to those today: the postwar economy was caught in the grips of a recession, facing a stock and bond market starved of liquidity, and inflation and unemployment rates both nearing 10%.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And with the Great Recession very much in living memory, few were willing to take risks with their money.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unfortunately, risk was exactly what the economy needed. Private investment from the middle class could have bolstered the nation\u2019s outlook and protected the wealth of countless families, but there weren\u2019t many transparent, mainstream ways for individual investors to access stock and bond markets. The SEC had formed just 15 years earlier, and the Roper Survey in 1939 \u2014 best known today for tracking anti-Semitism in the middle 20th century \u2014 showed that the majority of America believed Wall Street was where cattle were traded \u2014 the New York (live)Stock Exchange. Few Americans even knew the difference between a stock and a bond.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Enter Charlie Merrill. The legendary banker is credited for popularizing stock and bond investments at a time when they remained alien to most of the population. He started his career with contrarian bets, engineering the merger that created the Safeway line of chain stores when conventional wisdom held that grocers were below the attention of Wall Street firms; and later most notably when he called for investors to sell stocks in 1929, citing the Federal Reserve who warned that markets were growing \u201cexuberant.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(He also famously sold all of his partner\u2019s, Eddie Lynch\u2019s, stock while Lynch was away on vacation \u2014 Lynch remained understandably furious. Right up to Black Monday).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As World War II came to a close, Merrill eyed his greatest countertrade yet: recapitalizing a country starved of investment. He knew that Wall Street wouldn\u2019t be able to do it alone, and from his experience with the chain stores he understood that middle-class America was a largely untapped source of economic might.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, there remained the question of how to attract a whole population to a foreign asset class at a time when individual investment participation sat in the low single-digit percentile. Merrill himself said of the task:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote align-center\"><p>\n<i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt was probably the biggest job of mass education that\u2019s ever confronted any business at any time in the history of this country.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Three million responses<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The tip of the spear for this educational effort was Merrill Lynch\u2019s 1948 ad in the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">New York Times<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, \u2018<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kennewhouse.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/What-Everyone-Should-Know-About-This-Stock-and-Bond-Business-PDF.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What Everybody Ought To Know About This Stock and Bond Business<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u2019 Composed by Louis Engel, the ad is a genuine oddity in the history of advertising.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The full-page, 6,500-word spot \u2014 the longest word count for a newspaper advertisement ever \u2014 laid out with textbook simplicity the basics of the markets, and only mentioned Merrill Lynch once: an invitation to request more information by phone or by mail in order to learn more.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"row vc_row wpb_row vc_row-fluid\"><div class=\"jeg-vc-wrapper\"><div class=\"wpb_column jeg_column vc_column_container vc_col-sm-2\"><div class=\"jeg_wrapper wpb_wrapper\"><\/div><\/div><div class=\"wpb_column jeg_column vc_column_container vc_col-sm-8\"><div class=\"jeg_wrapper wpb_wrapper\"><div class=\"vc_empty_space\"   style=\"height: 32px\"><span class=\"vc_empty_space_inner\"><\/span><\/div><div id=\"6061\" class=\"krautgrid-item krautgrid-tile kraut-lightbox-single kraut-lightbox-image 6061-parent    kraut-lightbox-hover-zoom\" style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; float: none;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/What-Everybody-Needs-To-Know-About-This-Stock-and-Bond-Business.png\" class=\"kraut-lightbox-media nofancybox no-ajaxy\" data-title=\"\" rel=\"krautgroup\" data-thumbnail=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/What-Everybody-Needs-To-Know-About-This-Stock-and-Bond-Business.png\" data-usecors=\"global\" data-save=\"0\" data-share=\"0\" data-effect=\"random\" data-duration=\"5000\" data-nohashes=\"true\"><img class=\"krautgrid-image-zoom\" src=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/What-Everybody-Needs-To-Know-About-This-Stock-and-Bond-Business.png\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/What-Everybody-Needs-To-Know-About-This-Stock-and-Bond-Business.png 683w, https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/What-Everybody-Needs-To-Know-About-This-Stock-and-Bond-Business-233x300.png 233w\" alt=\"What Everybody Needs To Know About This Stock and Bond Business\" title=\"\" style=\"display: block; width: 100%; height: auto;\"><div class=\"krautgrid-caption \" style=\"background-color: rgba(24, 24, 24, 0.3); \"><\/div><\/a><\/div><div class=\"vc_empty_space\"   style=\"height: 32px\"><span class=\"vc_empty_space_inner\"><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"wpb_column jeg_column vc_column_container vc_col-sm-2\"><div class=\"jeg_wrapper wpb_wrapper\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"row vc_row wpb_row vc_row-fluid\"><div class=\"jeg-vc-wrapper\"><div class=\"wpb_column jeg_column vc_column_container vc_col-sm-12\"><div class=\"jeg_wrapper wpb_wrapper\">\n\t<div class=\"wpb_text_column wpb_content_element \" >\n\t\t<div class=\"wpb_wrapper\">\n\t\t\t<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In addition to being strange, the ad was also a massive risk \u2014 a full-page ad in the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Times<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> cost $5,000 dollars, roughly 2% of Merrill Lynch\u2019s entire ad budget in 1948.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Luckily for Merrill (and Engel), it was a success. The ad ran for months, and eventually in condensed versions well into the 1950s, collectively leading to over three million responses. In no small part due to Merrill Lynch\u2019s efforts, the number of individual investors in the United States nearly doubled between 1953 and 1959, rising from 6.5 to 12.5 million. For his part, Engel was offered a book deal from <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Little, Brown, and Co.<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, eventually producing the seminal \u201cHow To Buy Stocks,\u201d which ran through eight editions and was most recently re-released in 1994.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Today, the similarities between mid-century Merrill Lynch and Grayscale are easy to list. Silbert bet big on cryptocurrencies before they were popular, founding Grayscale in 2013 at a time when other institutions were reluctant to take the plunge. Grayscale has also made a point to lead the charge on the education front: their 2019 #DropGold campaign sought to teach investors about Bitcoin\u2019s superiority to gold as a hard asset \u2014 a campaign that still rankles noted goldbug and longtime Crypto Twitter nemesis Peter Schiff.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<script>(function() {\n\twindow.mc4wp = window.mc4wp || {\n\t\tlisteners: [],\n\t\tforms: {\n\t\t\ton: function(evt, cb) {\n\t\t\t\twindow.mc4wp.listeners.push(\n\t\t\t\t\t{\n\t\t\t\t\t\tevent   : evt,\n\t\t\t\t\t\tcallback: cb\n\t\t\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t\t);\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t}\n\t}\n})();\n<\/script><!-- Mailchimp for WordPress v4.8.6 - https:\/\/wordpress.org\/plugins\/mailchimp-for-wp\/ --><form inert id=\"mc4wp-form-1\" class=\"mc4wp-form mc4wp-form-5517 mc4wp-ajax\" method=\"post\" data-id=\"5517\" data-name=\"JNEWS style form\" ><div class=\"mc4wp-form-fields\"><div class=\"jeg_mc4wp_heading\">\r\n  <h3>The best of blockchain, every Tuesday<\/h3>\r\n  <p>Subscribe for thoughtful explorations and leisurely reads from Magazine.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n<p>\r\n    <input type=\"email\" name=\"EMAIL\" placeholder=\"Email address...\" required \ placeholder="disabled" disabled="disabled" title="form boxes are disabled in cached version of the site" value="Disabled" style="opacity:0.3;" />\r\n<\/p>\r\n<p>\r\n    <input type=\"submit\" value=\"SUBSCRIBE\" \ placeholder="disabled" disabled="disabled" title="form boxes are disabled in cached version of the site" value="Disabled" style="opacity:0.3;" />\r\n<\/p><br>\r\nBy subscribing you agree to our <a href=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/terms-and-privacy\" target=\"_blank\">Terms of Service and Privacy Policy<\/a><\/div><label style=\"display: none !important;\">Leave this field empty if you're human: <input type=\"text\" name=\"_mc4wp_honeypot\" value=\"\" tabindex=\"-1\" autocomplete=\"off\" \ placeholder="disabled" disabled="disabled" title="form boxes are disabled in cached version of the site" value="Disabled" style="opacity:0.3;" /><\/label><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"_mc4wp_timestamp\" value=\"1634279303\" \ placeholder="disabled" disabled="disabled" title="form boxes are disabled in cached version of the site" value="Disabled" style="opacity:0.3;" /><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"_mc4wp_form_id\" value=\"5517\" \ placeholder="disabled" disabled="disabled" title="form boxes are disabled in cached version of the site" value="Disabled" style="opacity:0.3;" /><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"_mc4wp_form_element_id\" value=\"mc4wp-form-1\" \ placeholder="disabled" disabled="disabled" title="form boxes are disabled in cached version of the site" value="Disabled" style="opacity:0.3;" /><div class=\"mc4wp-response\"><\/div><\/form><!-- \/ Mailchimp for WordPress Plugin -->\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The latest Grayscale ad isn\u2019t a novella-length primer like its Merrill Lynch predecessor, but still possesses a similar educational spirit. It\u2019s also peppier by multiple orders of magnitude. That legendary guitar riff from The Ramones\u2019 <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Blitzkrieg Bop<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> will grab the attention of viewers inclined to tune out during commercials (though the choice not to opt for Grandmaster Flash\u2019s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=PobrSpMwKk4\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Message<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2014 a song with a comparably sharp hook that explicitly gripes about high inflation \u2014 is nigh unconscionable), and it gallops through the history of money with all the zip and wit of a Jared Vennett <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/Bu2wNKlVRzE?t=100\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">voiceover<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. It\u2019s a good, fun spot.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From Twitter zealots to doctors and dentists<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Good, fun&#8230; and on cable news. The importance of the latter can\u2019t be overstated. The history of money is one of the headier, more complex tacks one can take when explaining crypto\u2019s importance, one which can abruptly veer into conspiracy-speak \u2014 <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">listen, we used to use SEASHELLS, you understand\u2026? <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2014 but \u2018The History of Money\u2019 makes the subject borderline palatable.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote align-center\"><p>\n<i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Arguments that were once the near-exclusive provenance of sweaty Twitter zealots with \u2018Self-Taught Economist\u2019 in their bios are now being made during the commercial break.\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2018What Everybody Ought To Know\u2019 laundered a revolutionary idea through a ubiquitous, trusted medium in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The New York Times<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and Grayscale has pulled off a similar feat here \u2014 the normalization effect could alone be massive.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the end, though, the campaign needs to do more than normalize. Ultimately \u2018The History of Money\u2019 will be measured by a similar metric as Merrill Lynch\u2019s: how many new investors did it bring to the table?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s an easy ice breaker for the space, because everyone has a story.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In these early days it\u2019s still a world that <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">has<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to be \u2018gotten into\u2019 \u2014 the educational process is more like falling down a well (or a rabbit hole) than a classroom experience.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Crypto-assets could very well change the fortunes and futures of countless families. So let\u2019s hope that just as Merrill\u2019s \u2018What Everyone Ought To Know\u2019 advertisement introduced boomers to stocks, a whole new generation of hodlers one day recalls they way they discovered crypto:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cOh you know \u2014 that one Grayscale commercial.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just as Merrill Lynch&#8217;s 1948 New York Times ad introduced boomers to stocks, Grayscale&#8217;s cable news ad blitz suggests the time is right for digital currency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":6060,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[157],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[2440,2012,2444,2442,222,2439,2441,787,2434,2443,669,2438,2437,2436,1665,288,2435,2445,688,1676],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6057"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6057"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6068,"href":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6057\/revisions\/6068"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6057"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=6057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}