Bitcoin — The Infinite Game

The Infinite Game theory is a business concept that argues business fits all characteristics to an infinite game.

A finite game — played for the purpose of “winning”.

An infinite game — played for the purpose of continuing play.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to go into deep theory or philosophy on this, I’m going to keep this real world and simple.

Some quotes from Simon Sinek who wrote the book, “The Infinite Game”.

“Leaders who embrace an infinite mindset, aligned with infinite play, will build stronger, more innovative, inspiring, resilient organizations.”

“Business, when viewed through an infinite mindset, do not have winners and losers, but rather players who simply drop out when they run out of the will, the desire, and/or the resources to continue play.”

“Business leaders should stop thinking about who wins or who is the best and start thinking about how to build and sustain strong and healthy organizations.”

Pepsi vs Coke

I recently asked the team at CoinCorner, “Who has won? Coke or Pepsi?” The question doesn’t necessarily require an answer, but is meant to make you think — what does “win” mean in business? Higher market cap? Most sales this year? Biggest following on social media?
The two companies dominate the drinks industry right now, but what if they both shut down? Would drinks stop being sold? No, a new worthy rival will come in and take the market share, meaning the “game” continues and as long as mankind needs drinks, that game will continue infinitely, so neither Pepsi nor Coke can ever “win”.

What drives a finite mindset?

One example where a finite mindset is created and often forced is what we’ve witnessed with Venture Capital (VC) driven companies over the last few decades. A VC company typically invests with a plan to exit within a short term time period, e.g. within a 3–12 year period. Straight away this puts the entrepreneur in a finite game mindset, with an “end goal” — this end goal “exit” can come in many forms, such as being acquired by a larger company, an IPO or a next round of funding.

For a VC, that’s their business model — which is fine, we’ve seen some incredibly successful companies backed by VC companies — however it does often create businesses with a finite game mindset, with many failing fast.

So, Bitcoin?

You’ve probably heard Bitcoiners talk about “lowering your time preference”, which means thinking long-term and valuing the future over the present, and yet, so many people and businesses within the industry operate with the opposite mindset, more like a finite game mindset.

They often start out with a business model aiming to solve real world problems, but then add 1 shitcoin to bring in short term revenue because they need to hit targets (or granted, sometimes survive), but then they need to add another shitcoin to keep the revenues, and then another, and before they know it, it’s too late and their business model has become a shitcoin casino with the core line of business being short-term speculation on shitcoins with no real world use.

We’ve seen lots of companies come and go over the last 10 years, but one that always sticks in my mind was a company called Bitnet. They were a Bitcoin payment gateway in 2013, who raised a total of $17 million and had Rakuten (a $7 billion eCommerce business) as their flagship client and investor. They spent a few years trying to onboard large clients for Bitcoin payments (these were the days before Lightning, so Bitcoin would never have scaled!), but unfortunately after struggling along for a few years, they were “sold for parts” and Rakuten swallowed them up and created a blockchain research department.

Timing definitely played a key part here — Bitcoin was not ready for this adoption — but their short term targets (a finite game) meant they attempted to force Bitcoin, something you just cannot do.

Bitnet are not in the a minority, they are the majority — over the last 10 years, companies trying to force Bitcoin to suit their short-term targets has been the norm, regardless of it going against the Bitcoin ethos of having low time preference. Unfortunately, when they realise they can’t force it, they pivot their business model to shitcoins, blockchains, smart contracts, NFTs, etc. losing focus of Bitcoin and losing sight of what we all believe it can become, in hopes of new revenue streams to hit those short-term targets.

In this industry, we have often seen companies take a rivalry further than should be required in order to “win” against a competitor. We are in a growing industry with new technology that will experience resistance without the need for competitors to be throwing stones at each other, trying to beat one another. We should be working together (or at worst, in friendly competition) to help drive each other forward to continue innovating, rather than throwing public abuse at each other over Twitter.
The finite mindset falls into the trap of wanting to “beat” the competitor rather than taking a step back to look at the bigger picture in play.

If a competitor shuts down and you “win”, it’s a short-term dopamine hit. And while you may mop up some extra customers, the real challenges are still there. For our industry, it’s regulation — the world banks fighting against Bitcoin — “eco-friendly” lobbyists and how we gain real world adoption of Bitcoin.

We’ve experienced this ourselves when we acquired Coinfloor, our long time UK competitor. I first met the Coinfloor team back in 2014 at a conference here in the Isle of Man and we stayed friendly over the years both pulling in the same direction.
Although the acquisition of Coinfloor meant it was one less competitor for us, it was also one less ally helping adoption, regulation, education etc.

It’s a short-term dopamine hit before the reality kicks in that the game goes on.

CoinCorner and Infinite Game

Nothing is simple, there is no silver bullet — there are always nuanced arguments to everything. In business it’s often not what’s right or wrong, it’s simply what works at that time and for you.

At CoinCorner, we try to operate with an infinite mindset — finding use cases and problems to solve with Bitcoin “right now” while innovating with products and infrastructure that we believe will be the future of the financial system in the decades to come. We grow with Bitcoin, rather than forcing it, being flexible and reactive to the world around us, while keeping our long-term focus in mind.

Over time we are effectively replicating the traditional financial infrastructure, but on the Bitcoin Lightning Network, making it faster, cheaper, interoperable and available 24/7/365.

Let me try to help you visualise our approach with the products and services we’ve built (via both web and mobile apps, all pretty much Bitcoin and Lightning enabled) and their current financial system equivalents…

B2C

• An easy way to buy Bitcoin — Modern investment/store of value.
• Bitcoin DCA — Regular automated buying of an asset/stock etc.
• Stacking accounts — Similar to your savings account with your bank, with targets and regular stacks.
• Lightning payments — Lightning can cater for all traditional payment rails, including SWIFT, eCommerce, in person payments, etc.
• The Bolt Card — Bitcoin’s answer to Visa and Mastercard, a Lightning contactless payment card.
• Recurring Lightning payments — Standing orders/direct debits/subscriptions.
• Send Globally — Remittance payments like Western Union, Transferwise etc.

B2B

• Bitcoin eCommerce payment gateway — Website payment processing, normally via credit cards or PayPal.
• Bitcoin email invoicing — The Bitcoin equivalent of sending a PayPal payment request to somebody.
• Bitcoin POS — Similar to a POS device that you would pay with via your Visa card in a shop.

We may not be a billion dollar company right now, but we’re here — 8 years later, a modest team of 30, $150,000 investment (in 2015), and profitable! — with the same focus we set out with in 2014: Bitcoin.

We haven’t jumped on the short-term ICOs, blockchain concepts, NFTs or any of the other buzzwords that do nothing but distract from Bitcoin and real world uses. We believe that keeping our focus on Bitcoin will come to fruition in the years and decades ahead, helping Bitcoin become what we all believe it will be.

This doesn’t mean we won’t cross over with some more finite mindset opportunities, e.g. an IPO, but if we do IPO, we will keep the mindset that it isn’t our end goal — there is no end goal — and we will just keep offering the best service we possibly can with our authentic approach to building and innovating keeping our customers happy and loyal for the long-term.

Hopefully, over time, we can prove Simon’s quote:

Leaders who embrace an infinite mindset, aligned with infinite play, will build stronger, more innovative, inspiring, resilient organizations

We’ll see over the coming decades which companies survive the long-term and whether they had an infinite or finite mindset.

The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek: https://simonsinek.com/books/the-infinite-game/

This communication is for information and education purposes only and is not intended as promotional material in any respect. All posts are the opinion of the author and should not be construed as investment advice and the opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of CoinCorner Ltd. Cryptocurrencies are unregulated in the UK. Crypto profits may be subject to Capital Gains Tax. The value of investments is variable and can go down as well as up. Any references to past or future performance are not, and should not be taken as, a reliable indicator of future results. CoinCorner Ltd makes no representation and assumes no liability as to the accuracy or completeness of the content of this publication.