The next session featured another quintet – this one detailing a Marketing Strategy Holistic Approach for Clients to Maximize ROI. It featured (left to right – participating in a group photo at the end of their discussion) Moderator Braden Pollock(LegalBrandMarketing.com), Alex Melen (Co-Founder & CEO, Smart Sites), Roberto Blake(RobertoBlake.com), Michael Mahler (Senior Strategist, Ajax Union) and Michael Suarez(Senior Strategist, Ajax Union).

Original Source:

https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2017/dailyposts/20170808-2.htm

The white hot cryptocurrency Ethereum went on a wild ride on Wednesday, plummeting from around $320 to around 10 cents in a so-called “flash crash.” The price soon recovered but not before some investors took a terrible bath and some others made out like bandits.

Here’s what happened.

Ethereum, a popular new digital currency, trades on exchanges much like its older rival bitcoin. The most widely-used exchange, Coinbase-owned GDAX, operates like a traditional stock exchange, and lets traders buy stock on margin and place so-called “stop loss” orders—an automated instruction to sell if the price falls below a certain point.

As Adam White, the VP of GDAX, explained in a blog post, one investor placed a multi-million dollar Ethereum “sell” order at 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday. The size of the order caused the price of the currency, which is already volatile, to dip.

Things started to go really haywire, however, as the price dip triggered a series of stop loss orders.

“This slippage started a cascade of approximately 800 stop loss orders and margin funding liquidations, causing ETH to temporarily trade as low as $0.10,” White explained.

In other words, the computers executing the stop loss orders began to sell at all costs and, so long as there was someone on the other side to match the order, the trade went through—even if the price was totally irrational, and driven only by an algorithmic frenzy.

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This is hardly the first time such a thing has happened, of course. The infamous “flash crash” of 2010 saw automated trading tied to ETFs drive stocks off a cliff, including those listed on indexes like the Dow Jones and the Nasdaq, before the share price recovered a few hours later.

The big difference with Wednesday’s Ethereum flash crash is that, unlike the events of 2010, GDX says it will not unwind the trades.

#GDAX (#Coinbase) will not reverse margin & limit trades that were caused by a 99% drop in #Etherium/#ETH yesterday https://t.co/EQuJaSWwR1 pic.twitter.com/DOGTnCnX2Q

— Alex Melen (@amelen) June 22, 2017

This is terrible news for those who sold Ethereum while the price was falling through the floor. It would be like seeing a computer sell of your Apple shares for $1 and not being able to do anything about it. Meanwhile, those who had put out “buy” orders to buy Ethereum if the price fell super-low would have made a killing.

Some seasoned traders on discussion forums like Hacker News basically shrugged at the news, and said such events are not uncommon in foreign exchange trading, and that those who placed the stop-loss orders should have known better. Others noted this just how markets work, and praised GDAX for how they handled it.

Others, however, are grumbling and calling for a class action suit against Coinbase. Meanwhile, some speculated that the Ethereum flash-crash came about because of an error or that a “whale” trader deliberately induced it in order to make money off the chaos.

Ethereum briefly crashed from $319 to 10 cents in seconds on one exchange after ‘multimillion…
One trader allegedly made over $1 million off of the ethereum flash crash.

Wednesday’s events are just the latest piece of news in a wild few months for Ethereum, and for cryptocurrency in general, as speculator interest in digital and blockchain-based assets is at an all-time high. As of Thursday morning, the price of one unit of Ethereum was $330, according to CoinDesk.

Original Source:

https://fortune.com/2017/06/22/ethereum-crash/

In a popular 3pm panel discussion the topic was how to Develop a Domain and Sell a Business. The panelists (left to right) were David Seelos (HasTraffic.com), Michael Gilmour(ParkLogic), moderator Braden Pollock, Rob Monster (Epik.com) and Alex Melen (T35 Hosting).

Original Source:

https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2017/dailyposts/20170517.htm

NameSummit 2017 brings Alex Melen and the leading branding and digital media experts together for a two-day conference in New York City

NameSummit 2017 announces that Alex Melen, chief financial officer and co-CEO of SmartSites, will offer attendees the benefit of his more than ten years of digital media knowledge and expertise as one of its speakers. He will be joined at the digital media conference at the Hilton Midtown in New York City on Aug. 7-8 by other leaders in digital marketing, branding, and social media from around the world.

Mr. Melen has won recognition and awards as the founder of T35 Hosting, considered a pioneer and one of the largest providers of free web hosting services. He continues overseeing operations at T35, but he now splits his time with the digital advertising agency he founded in 2011. His career also included three years as head of digital analytics for the Walmart account at Starcom MediaVest Group.

Named by YoungBiz as one of the top 100 young entrepreneurs in America, Mr. Melen has also been chosen by BusinessWeek for inclusion on its list of Top 25 Entrepreneurs Under 25. He was invited to the White House in 2012 to share his thoughts on young entrepreneurship with members of President Obama’s staff and was the featured speaker at HostingCon Europe 2016 where he spoke about “Marketing in a Cut-Throat Industry.”

Original Source:

https://namesummit.com/digital-media-expert-alex-melen-speaking-at-namesummit-2017/

The marketing world is a tricky maze. Navigating the ins and outs of promoting one’s business is not for the faint of heart, which is why Alex Melen, the CEO and founder of SmartSites, takes an aggressive approach when it comes to his marketing efforts. In the space since the late 1990’s, Melen houses a wealth of knowledge regarding not only hosting, but also digital advertising. In his breakout session, Melen will dig into how novices can stand out as while marketing in their own cut throat industries.

Alex Melen is an Award-Winning serial entrepreneur. In addition to his first company T35 Hosting, Melen and his brother, Mike, also co-founded SmartSites, a digital marketing agency based in Bergen County New Jersey. Having been featured in publications including Forbes and BusinessWeek, Melen is proof that knowledge of how to promote one’s business is pivotal for success in any industry.

Web hosting and cloud services are well-known as two of the most competitive verticals in the digital sphere. In his session at HostingCon Global 2017, Melen will discuss leveraging marketing tools and initiatives to bring about the most significant ROI for not only his own business, but also his clients’. He’ll explain how to attract the right customers in cost effective ways, and how to track successes versus failures with creative marketing initiatives. Understanding how to properly structure online marketing campaigns is crucial for keeping acquisition costs low while simultaneously optimizing revenue.

Also covered in Melen’s session will be the trends that currently dominate the market, as well as the trends expected to pop up in the coming years. This information is helpful for not only industry newcomers, but also well-seasoned hosting experts. Brushing up on current events keeps everyone on their toes, and levels the playing field. Even Melen sees the value in further education; he values hearing not only what his higher ups have to say, but also his peers’ input.

“Part of the reason I love coming to these events is because I get to be a student,” says Melen. “It’s great to contribute, but even better to hear what my hosting colleagues have to say and learn from them. There are so many hard-to-navigate industries, and learning how to push your business to the top is crucial.”

Original Source:

https://blog.hostingcon.com/2017/02/22/smartsites-alex-melen-to-speak-at-hostingcon-global-2017/