Spam emails have become so ubiquitous that each day, people worldwide receive 14.5 billion pieces of these unwanted and unsolicited ads.
Electronic mail was invented during the Cold War to give the US. military an emergency communication channel in case of nuclear war. But the tech has since morphed into a Pandora’s Box that unleashes ads for products and outright scams.
Spamming harms people in other ways, too. Fraudsters use attachments as a Trojan—Horse tactic for embedding Viruses, spying tools, and malware. In 2016, three-fourths (76%) of companies fell Victim to phishing scams, according to Symantec. And criminals often demand multi-million-dollar ransoms to restore a compromised website, network or system.
Email Paywalls as Disruptive Solution
Stewart Dennis, email systems and advertising expert, believes that creating a global email-access market is a disruptive solution to bulk solicitations. His email paywall (which a US. patent in April 2019) enables advertisers to pay recipients with cryptocurrencies using Credo tokens. Moreover, advertisers can become compliant with regulators as recipients give consent to receiving emails.
Congress’s CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 restricts unsolicited emails and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) oversees industry practices through the government has clearly failed to protect consumers from receiving spam.
“Since – I’ve developed an email paywall system that lets advertisers incentivize recipients with token rewards to engage relevant offers,” says Dennis, who co-founded BitBounce, a blockchain venture. “Audiences can pay more attention to marketers in such an arrangement. Paywalls significantly reduce intrusiveness.”
BitBounce is conducting a second token sale in May-June to raise growth capital.
The Cost of Spam
A 2012 study by Nucleus Research found that spam costs $1,934 per employee, and costs businesses $20.5 billion annually during that period. But those numbers are likely significantly understated. Some observers peg the annual cost these days at nearly $250 billion worldwide.
Most other paywall strategies use dollars, euros, or another major fiat. But Dennis Stewart says cryptocurrencies can be more effective at improving practices for a variety of reasons.
“Token transactions can be confirmed in seconds or minutes, they’re also perfect for facilitating cross-border micropayments at a fraction of the cost of traditional payment networks.”
Spamming can be a high—margin opportunity where costs are fixed. Because the cost of adding more recipients is negligible.
Ranked in order, the United States, China, and Russia receive the most spam, according to Sparnhaus. And America is home to 7 of the world’s top 10 spammers, with 2 from Ukraine and 1 from Russia. These stats show the FTC’s ineptitude and/or disinterestedness in combating unsolicited emails. Thus, American consumers will likely need private industry for effective solutions.
Second Fundraising Round
In 2017, BitBounce’s initial coin offering (ICO) raised 31,595 ethereum or $11.3 million. It enjoyed support from Silicon Valley, including bitcoin bull Tim Draper. The May-June token sale will be used to develop the paywall ecosystem, intellectual property, and grow the team.
According to CEO Stewart Dennis, that includes hiring sales reps, engineers, and other operators.
“With our solution, email spam would be relegated to a relic of internet history and no longer be a problem that users have to deal with. Inboxes would be far cleaner and manageable with unsolicited, unpaid emails filtered away.”
