Financial Analysis: A Case Study on BitGold's Global Strategy

This case study examines BitGold, a Canadian company founded in 2014 that offers savings and payment services in gold, leveraging blockchain technology. The analysis covers BitGold's global market strategies, particularly its focus on developing economies like India and China, and the marketing approaches it should adopt to attract users in these regions. The study also explores BitGold's compliance with Canadian and international financial regulations, including the requirements for gold transactions and adherence to standards set by organizations like the London Bullion Market and NACHA. Furthermore, it delves into BitGold's marketing strategies, including building user communities and utilizing email subscriptions. The case study concludes with an overview of BitGold's corporate structure and its alignment with financial service industry best practices, emphasizing the importance of regulatory compliance and the need to address potential competition as it expands globally.

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Bit Gold Case Study
Name of Student
Institution Affiliation
Date

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Introduction
BitGold is a Canadian company offering savings and payment services. The company allows
people and make payments and have savings inform of Gold. Roy Sebag and Josh Crumb
founded it in the year 2014, and in 2015 it had its Initial Public Offering (IPO) in Canada on the
TSX venture exchange. It had a blending of blockchain technology a digital currency which laid
the way for future legitimation, thus making it able to go public through the help of Financial
technology startups. It continues to advertise its model of the business to potential customers all
over the world, offering free storage of Gold. It also ensures that its vaults in various regions are
secure through an arrangement by the Brinks company which provides access to the vaults and
also gives insurance to customers. It has headquarters in Toronto Canada and the European
headquarters in Milan, Italy.
Question 1
BitGold, as a global platform, should target economies with a large population such as India. It
should come up with marketing strategies that are respective to every developing country to enter
the market. BitGold needs to target developing economies that are open to accepting new
technologies. Other growing economies such as China and India will also be appealing to
BitGold even though there might be entry challenges in the market since for a case in China
there are other established players in the sector such as the Alibaba Group which has Alipay (Fu,
2019). For the company to acquire a large number of users from the developing countries, there
should be no charges to users, and therefore it should cater for storage and maintenance. The
company can achieve these by charging a small percentage on every transaction to provide for
the cost. The company has varying audiences form different parts of the world. Therefore, it
should tailor its strategies depending on the economy of the respective region to penetrate the

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markets. It needs to market its benefits which include low entry cost, zero storage cost and the
stability of the gold market to attract the individuals in these countries seeking long term
investment that is less affected by the economic forces.
Question 2
BitGold service operates under Canadian law and is regarded as a dealer associated with stones
and metals. For it to remain on the right side of the law, it should ensure that transaction of the
customers begin in a different subsidiary BitGold Vault Inc. The laws by the corporate are that it
should sell and buy 99.95% pure gold and that the Gold should meet the minimum requirements
set by the London Bullion Market. It's also a requirement for the company that the customers
ensure that they have insurance cover for their golds from Brinks company. The patent-pending
technology "aurum" ensures that the customers conduct an audit at the vault when requesting for
a real-time audit of the Gold through a digital copy that is encrypted and sends to the auditor or
the vault custodian. It also should allow that the Gold is physically inspected, reported and
reconciled.
Question 3
BitGold needs to understand its market for it to successfully market its services to users and
merchants in Canada and abroad. It's through understanding the market that the company gets an
idea of the business is ready; this helps the company to know if it will be valuable. For effective
marketing, the company should also grasp the basics and rules related to the cryptocurrency so
that it can answer the customer questions accurately. The company can create an email
subscription on the website so that interested users can subscribe to receive updates and other
relevant information related to BitGold. The company also can build a community of users to act
as a marketing service. The users in Canada and abroad can work together as a community

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providing a platform where customers and the account holders can discuss their views these can
attract other people to use the platform.
Question 4
The corporate structure of BitGold is in line with the best practices in the financial services
industry. It has adopted various compliance protocols by working through mainstream
institutions. For the company to be approved in the US, BitGold should be certified by (National
Automated Clearing and Housing Association) NACHA, which implements regulations to
manage and mitigate risks that are associated with financial operations. It ensures that the firm is
committed to payment security through certification. BitGold has a business framework that
complies with the certification goal of (National Automated Clearing and Housing Association)
NACHA, which is to improve transactional security and speed. Also, it's transparent and
accountable to customers which allows it to build a rapport with the customers. It should,
therefore, a risk management guideline and give an overview of its background and mission as
well as the history of secure transactions to be allowed to commence operations in the US. Its
approval in The US is essential for the growth of BitGold since it's in a better position to begin
operations in some parts of the United States (Tapscott, 2016).
Conclusion
BitGold primary mission is to make Gold accessible and useful in payments and savings. Over
the years, the company continues to grow, offering services to the customers. The company,
however, needs to focus on acquiring new users from other regions all over the globe by
ensuring that their marketing strategies align with the economy of the region to attract more
customers. It should ensure adherence to the regulations in different areas to ensure that it
remains on the right side of the law. It should ensure that its structure and service delivery is in

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line with the best practices of the financial services industry for certification by regulating firm
such as (National Automated Clearing and Housing Association) NACHA. However, the
company should also prepare for stiff competition from other financial services as it expands its
operations globally.

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References
Fu, J., Zhou, Y., Wu, S., & Wang, X. (2019, May). Let's Chat in Alipay: Understanding Social
Function Usage in Task-oriented Apps. In Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI
Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-6).
Tapscott, D., & Tapscott, A. (2016). Blockchain revolution: how the technology behind bitcoin
is changing money, business, and the world. Penguin.