Ok so back on topic.
- What sort of demographic would this attract?
- How "sticky" would said demographic be?
- What unique things could this demographic buy with BitUSD that they otherwise couldn't buy with FiatUSD?
I don't think this is the best use of opportunity cost, especially considering the precedent it will set. I think in terms of marketing, we should be thinking more along the lines of strategic seeding. Fortunately for us we've already got a great model to imitate: Bitcoin.
So, my question for the community is: what were the tipping points of early Bitcoin adoption?
1.
Cyprus - The general public are Incredibly sceptical of digital currencies/companies but Cyprus exposed the risk posed by centralised institutions and tipped the short term risk scales in Bitcoin's favour. (Mainly still for young reasonably tech savvy males - 95%+ males, 37% libertarian/anarchco capitalist, avg. age 33 -
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-10/demographics-bitcoin )
I would even say the risk posed of currencies hyper-inflating in the case of another bailout made a decentralised currency with a set in stone inflation model appealing too. 'There will only be 21 million Bitcoin's'
2.
China was a big catalyst - I don't have a good confident analysis for what drove China's demand. Maybe Chinese community can say.
The same demographics though are in play today of people that would currently use something linked to a decentralised company/currency.
http://moneymorning.com/2014/01/13/uses-bitcoin-suddenly-big-deal-businesses/The proposal suggested here is directed at spenders not savers and not in anway the demographic that has shown an appetite for using crypto based offerings at this stage. (In fact it's more likely that target market will run a mile if inflation systems aren't set in stone.)
Even with KYC pre-paid cards with such generous returns, it will be heavily gamed imo.
BitShares has been historically weak on marketing imo and I think we're even moving into the more harm than good stage here. Our best play may be to get a stable, decentralised client and a good interest system going and let it sell itself.